


those august nights (they burn hot as hell)

by horrorterroronesie



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Legion-Aligned Courier, M/M, Mojave Wasteland (Fallout), Mutual Pining, Non-Graphic Violence, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, desert funtimes!, the opposite of a meet-cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 36,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23819122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horrorterroronesie/pseuds/horrorterroronesie
Summary: Sold into slavery or double-crossed by the Courier, with nowhere else to turn, it was only a small wonder that Arcade and Benny met each other on Fortification Hill.He’d prepared his final words in advance, because that wasn’t weird at all. ‘Even in Arcadia, I exist'-“Baby, there’s a shortage of abs like yours in the world. Seems a shame to waste ‘em.”
Relationships: Benny (Fallout)/Arcade Gannon
Comments: 32
Kudos: 92





	1. 1. with a philosophical flourish, cato throws himself upon the sword

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for non-graphic suicide attempt in this chapter

Arcade Gannon sat and waited. 

He didn’t know what he was waiting for. But on every side, Caesar’s Praetorian Guard leered at him, the door of the tent so close and yet so unreachable in his captivity.  _ Slavery _ . Oh god. 

So what could he do but wait?

He was unarmed, too- he’d only kept a scalpel, hidden unobtrusively in the lining of his coat. He didn't use guns, the Courier didn’t have any knives small enough to hide, and his Plasma Defender was far too lumpy to smuggle in. 

So there he was. Hands bound in front of him with rope- thin, but what did that matter when he was surrounded on every side by Caesar's best? 

Rage, weedy and impotent, choked him. Far too late to do any good. He'd not felt it while he was being dragged away. Staring into the Courier's eyes, he’d found himself unable to feel anything but horror and confusion. 

His reflection was stopped by a hand coming down very lightly on his shoulder. Arcade flinched bodily, turning around to find himself facing Vulpes Inculta himself. 

He wasn’t a particularly noticeable man. That was Arcade’s first thought. He wouldn’t even have realized it was him, really, if it hadn’t been for the hat and the dim recollection of that face plastered all over NCR propaganda posters. 

Vulpes smiled thinly. 

“You may be wondering why you are here,” he began. “Despite my reticence in using a profligate for this matter, the Courier has assured me you are a capable doctor.” 

Arcade stared. 

“You don’t actually expect me to treat your sick?” 

A twitch of anger briefly passed across the Frumentarius’ face, smoothing back into detached disgust. 

“No. I expect you to treat Caesar, or die on a cross as befits you." 

What. 

“What?” 

In lieu of answering, Inculta simply motioned for him to stand up. He did so warily. How much deeper did this go than just Six’s decision to sell him into slavery? He’d thought that was all it was, but had she done so for this purpose? And what the hell did “treating Caesar” entail? 

He barely registered that he was being led out until he felt the cool breeze on his face. 

“It is what you profligates would call a brain tumour. As of late, our leader has been experiencing bouts of... he retreats from himself for a time, then returns disoriented and sick.” 

“An absence seizure.” 

Inculta hit him with a glare like a rocket launcher. It very succinctly implied that if he, the profligate scum of the earth, wouldn’t shut up, it would be done for him. Nails would be involved. 

“The surgery will be tomorrow. For now, your accommodations.” They had arrived at a nondescript wooden shack on the northwest slope of the hill. 

He went into the building. Metal bar partitions lined its length, turning it into a collection of cells. He was shown to a cell bordering two walls, bare save for a wooden cot. 

He didn’t attempt to look around further, vision narrowing into a thin tunnel as he was pushed in. The door of the cell clicked shut behind him. 

“You will be called upon when needed. I suggest you have a good night’s sleep.” 

#

The small cell was almost pitch black. The shadows stretched from the gaps in the wooden planks, falling across the rest of the shack like strips of fully opaque fabric.

A stillness seemed to have fallen over the Fort outside, though the distant sounds of water and the footfalls of legionnaires still filtered through.

…

He was scared.

God, what was he going to do?

Finally, he remembered the small scalpel in his boot. It wasn't enough for him to actually think of escaping with, of course not, but it brought him some small comfort.

The idea of choice.

He could sleep and operate in the morning. He could doom innumerable people to a life of slavery with the act of saving Caesar.

Or. Or he could-

-extract himself from the situation permanently, use the only sliver of autonomy he had left to enact a final act of what more charitable people might call sacrifice, but he knew was an act of sui-

"Et in Arcadia ego," he muttered, pulling his shirt away with mechanical movements. The scalpel rested just above the surface of his skin, shaking in a way he'd never allow if he was operating on someone. He’d prepared his final words in advance, because that wasn’t weird at all. ‘Even in Arcadia, I exist.’ The ‘I’ referring to death, drawing from memento mori paintings, as well as a reference to his own name. He was quite proud of that. Not that anybody would hear him-

“Baby, there’s a shortage of abs like yours in the world. Seems a shame to waste ‘em.”

Arcade flinched, dropping the scalpel with a clatter. There was someone else in the shack. On the other side, facing his cell, was a man in much the same predicament. His cell was furnished just as much as Arcade’s own, which was to say there was a cot on which he seemed to have been sleeping.

That was probably why Arcade hadn’t seen him, actually.

Well, he was awake now, and watching him with an unreadable expression. Perhaps that was because of the extensive bruising of his face, rather than any attempt towards inscrutability- he seemed more bruise than human. A shirt that might have once been white was brown with blood and muck.

"I don't see why you have to care." Arcade retorted, voice scratchy. He hadn't thought he'd be using it again.

The tied up man shrugged in acquiescence.

"Mm. Maybe I don't. But maybe I don't want your innards stinkin' up the place, dig?"

Something about the way he spoke was familiar, but there were better things to do than chase half-remembered connections. Not many, but there were a few.

“Tomorrow, they’ll make me save Caesar’s life. Brain tumor.” He elaborated, each word feeling like it was being forced out of him with white-hot pliers. Maybe he could write this off as a last-ditch effort to make himself remembered, instead of petulant anger at his suicide attempt being interrupted.

Julie wouldn’t even notice his absence for… months, most likely. His recent nomadic lifestyle had set a precedent. And Boone, in the Lucky 38, wouldn't bother to look.

...Nobody would notice he was gone.

He snapped out of his reverie yet again with a jolt, only to see the man had sat up straighter and moved towards the nearer side of the cell. It wasn’t much, but it was the thought that counted.

“What, that’s why you’re offing yourself in the kennels? Give yourself some credit, baby. You got the chance to kill the guy in broad daylight- not to survive it, but count your blessings.”

Arcade couldn’t help himself. He scoffed.

“And let Lanius take the reins thereafter? Thanks, but I’ll take my chances with a slowly dying, but mostly sane evil overlord.”

“You disemboweling yourself in a shitty little tent ain’t much of ‘taking your chances’.”

Arcade paused. A conclusion surfaced, bobbing above the sea of dissociation.

"You have a Chairman accent." And then, after a moment, "Oh, just my luck. You're Benny."

“The one and only, baby,” The man in question tried to smirk. It didn’t really work. At all. “... Now, I’d say I know who you are, but the Courier’s best pal ain’t quite somebody I would expect to find wearing a slave collar.”

“No, you’re thinking of the other Follower doctor travelling with the Courier. My name is Blarcade Blannon.” He bit out on reflex.

The man’s- Benny’s eyebrows only rose.

“Touchy. This place is bad enough without you acting like _ that. _ "

There was a beat of silence while they examined each other.

Firstly, Benny looked like shit. His face was bruised and bloodied, one eye swollen shut entirely. His checkered suit- and it was almost awe-inspiring how garish it was, and how Arcade hadn’t seen it before- was in a pile beside him, more brown than black and white.

Though Arcade probably wasn't looking much better. Definitely not, if the way the other man was looking at him was any indication.

“I thought Six killed you.”

“Yeah, well, don’t ask me why that ain’t the case. She showed up, gloated, then scarpered.” He rolled his eyes. “Lucky me.”

“Mm.”

“Anyway, you’re saying Baldylocks out there is about to make the first good decision he’s made and kick the bucket.”

“Not sure it’s a decision as much as a brain tumor-”

“So consider this. Survive for another few days, enough to do whatever they want from you, and then we can escape together.”

The idea shocked Arcade out of his stupor.

“What?”

Benny grunted, obviously not pleased with the reply.

“If you don’t want to, it’s your prerogative, but at least consider it. And if you choose not to, then I’ll know you were too kooky for me to escape with anyway.”

“Do you have a  _ plan? _ ”

“I do! Who do you take me for? I got a plan, and I got a good indication that Caesar here ain’t actually got the Platinum Chip. Nothing’s as set in stone as it looks now. Lots of time left to bounce back.”

“I’m sure.” The words had barely registered. “I’ll survive for tomorrow, then.”

“That’s the spirit.”

#

_ The operation. _

He only saw it in flashes whenever he thought back. The circumstances were not ideal, but the tumor was operable.

The walls were lined with legionnaires.

#

_ The aftermath. _

Arcade swayed where he stood, one hand reaching up to card through his hair. The other man seemed to be waiting for him to say something, but nothing was forthcoming.

“Well?” Asked Benny, breaking the morose silence.

“Well what?”

“What do you think? Am I asking you how the weather outside is, baby?

“It’s sunny.” Arcade replied automatically. On an intellectual level, he knew he was being pointlessly sullen to the only person who was even in an approximation of the same situation he was in. But now, all he wanted to do was fall asleep and never wake up. His hands shook uncontrollably.

"Thanks. Come on, is Baldie gonna live or not?"

The crux of the matter. Possibilities whirled around his head, each with a death count, each carrying the bodies of the people he cared about.

Logically, considering his knowledge of the operation he'd performed, environmental factors, the equipment he'd had available to him….

He banished the screams of the imminently deceased from his mind.

"He'll live."

Benny sighed, shifting in place.

“Right.”

Despite himself, Arcade felt a surge of bitterness welling up. What right did he have, passing judgement from a point devoid of responsibility? What would  _ he _ have done, this bloodied man with promises dripping from his mouth like liquid mercury.

The stale air of the shack was a blanket of inertia, leaving every word he could have said dead on his tongue.

Either way, there wasn’t anything left to say. Arcade collapsed onto the floor, leaned against the edge of his cot, and tried to clear his head.

Night fell soon enough.

#

The Fort was dark. That wasn’t to be confused with inactivity, though- even through the small gaps in the wood, Arcade could see flickering torchlight and bonfires burning down by the lake. The growling and yipping of dogs continued in the darkness.

When he looked towards the other side of the shack, Benny seemed to be asleep, his shoulders stark against the dark cedar of the tent sides.

Not for the first time, Arcade wondered how this had happened. By all accounts- or specifically by the Courier’s, delivered at him fresh in the bonds of his new station- Benny had died before the nuclear wreckage of House’s bunker had even cooled. So why was he still here, trying to pretend that he was perfectly at ease, trapped and beaten as he was?

The morning wouldn’t bring with it anything better.

But it would be a better time to get answers.

Shuddering slightly, Arcade lay down on the wooden cot and tried to get comfortable.

#

The morning saw the both of them awakened by a legionnaire, barely an adult, barging into the tent and pulling Arcade up by the collar of his shirt.

“Hwuh?” He groaned, flailing his arms.

“The mighty Caesar requires your presence in his tent. Right now.”

“What for?” Arcade grunted, getting his feet under him and pulling away from the man’s hold. “If it’s medical assistance he wants, it’d serve him better if he gave me a moment to wake up.”

The legionnaire blinked, clearly unused to slaves talking back to him.

“He… Uh, I mean, it’s none of your business! Follow me, uh, profligate scum!” He barked out, voice on the verge of cracking. It was really kinda pathetic. If Arcade was in any other position, he might have spared a thought for the way the Legion indoctrinated child soldiers, but as it stood he was tired and angry and probably about to die, so it wasn’t really a high priority. He was led from the cell, barely taking note of the mist-tinged surroundings. The ground seemed to drop away where the hill ended, falling into a creeping wall of fog.

“Caesar awaits you.” The legionnaire shoved him into a tent. Was it the same one he’d been in yesterday, or a different one? He had no idea. The sides were burlap, the ground was sandy, and Caesar’s guards lined the walls.

The man himself was lying on one of those Roman side-beds- what were those called?- a hand over his eyes as if to block out a headache. Arcade was sure, though, that any Legionnaire would describe the scene more in terms of reclining imperiously than cowering in pain. His head still wrapped with gauze, but a liberal applications of Stimpaks the day before- and wasn’t that just  _ hilarious _ in the dumbest possible way, that the tyrant of the Legion 

“Have you ever read Hegel?” He asked abruptly.

Arcade nodded, wary.

“He… expanded on Plato’s dialectic model?”

Caesar looked up at him with a look like he hadn’t actually expected that answer.

“He did. The two sides, through conflict, grow to more sophisticated positions. Not people, but…”

“You mean… the tumour?”

“What? No. I’m not saying that a goddamn  _ brain tumour _ is a stepping-off point for ideological growth.” Caesar growled out.

Arcade winced, nodding carefully. 

The man’s conversational mood seemed to be ruined, and he lay back.

“I meant the NCR. Between  _ you _ and my Legion, it’s all I need.”

“I’m not NCR.” The words slipped out of his mouth before he had the chance to rein them back in. Caesar just chuckled.

“Of course you aren’t. I would be dead if you were. But you wouldn’t be Legion, either.”

Arcade felt like his brain was submerged in dry ice. What to reply to that? What was Caesar looking for? Did he actually expect Arcade to join the Legion? Was this a test? A joke? Was it-

“This was a good talk.” Caesar nodded decisively before he could reply and turned to the guards. “Now, take him back to his cell. We might do this sort of thing again some time. It’s refreshing to debate with somebody intelligent.”

#

Arcade slumped yet again against the wood supports of his cell. He felt sick to his stomach. Was this how it was going to be forever, or would Caesar tire of him quickly and have him crucified? The man hadn’t even had the decency to experience cognitive impairment from the surgery. Would he forever live on the fine line between dialogue and disrespect, pinwheeling to keep his balance, lest he go too far on either side? 

A cough cut through his horrified contemplation.

“Congrats, baby. You survived whatever the hell that was supposed to be.” Benny snarked. “Now, can we get on with the plan?”

"I… yeah."

"Good. Now listen close, 'cause I won't explain it twice. It goes like this…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from moby dick.   
> the fic title is from bloody nose by jack conte, and if you liked this you can find me on tumblr at cyberiandemons! this fic has been a looooooong time coming and im excited to see how ppl like it :0  
> i'll be updating every friday for the next few months, all the chapters are already done so there's no chance of writer's block messing up my schedule :3


	2. 2. faces too blurry to make out, numbers far too high to measure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A daring escape.

It was always darkest before dawn. That little proverb seemed to be proving itself true right now, the fires of the Fort having long extinguished themselves in the fog.

And in this darkness, a strangely well-coiffed legionnaire dragged a slave towards the river.

"Can you see a boat?"

"I can't see anything, pal!" The nominal legionnaire hissed. "Just keep walkin' down and we'll hit the lake eventually."

The ‘slave’ frowned, huffing a breath out through his teeth. Still, chatter could bring the whole Fort down on them. Though it was seeming more and more likely that Benny’s plan only reached as far as they could steal spare uniforms, and not far enough to cover the particulars of their  _ actual escape.  _ All things concerned, this could well have been as far as they got.

They walked towards the docks.

Through the grey-tinged air, the wooden structures came into view. Boats were tied to wooden stumps, oars stuck in barrels by the shore.

And there was a man methodically sanding down the side of a boat.

He looked up as they approached. Fuck, what was he doing here? Benny had been so certain that nobody would be here, but why had Arcade trusted him? God, he was a casino boss, of course he would be able to look confident! As if he was giving Arcade a convenient example, Benny’s footsteps didn’t even falter as he walked up to the man.

“I need a boat.” Benny announced imperiously. From this close, Arcade could see a drop of sweat fall from his jaw. Alright, maybe he was nervous.

"There aren't any." The boatswain shrugged with half a glower.

"Wh-" Benny fought to get his expression under control. "What do you mean, there aren't any? I was told to bring this slave downriver. Under the orders of C... Kai-zar himself!"

"Unlikely. You aren't even-"

Benny shot him in the head.

"What the fuck!" Arcade cried out, running after Benny, who himself took off running towards the northmost docks. Wha- where had he- how?! A gun?! How did he have a gun?! It gleamed gold and white in the torchlight across filigreed inlays.

"We're wasting time," Benny gasped in reply. He fell to his knees by a boat, pulling on the rope tethering it to the land. "He'd have raised an alarm faster than I did!"

Arcade forewent continuing the conversation, instead grabbing two oars from a pile and chucking them into the boat. Behind them the Fort was waking up.

"Go go go!"

They pushed off from the dock and were rowing in seconds. Still no movement- wait. No. As the tendrils of fog came up to obscure the shoreline, Arcade locked eyes with a single legionnaire.

The first of a group running towards the body of that boat guy.

“Fuck.” He hissed. “Row faster.”

The fog closed in on them.

#

The lake was wreathed in fog. Only the faint rays of the sun above and beside them proved that they hadn’t turned themselves around, that they weren’t just rowing right back to the Fort.

“There’s probably lakelurks in here. We should be careful.”

Benny only grunted, eyes firmly fixed back where they’d come from.

They continued in silence.

“...Think they’re followin’ us?”

“ _ Yes.”  _

They rowed slightly faster for a while.

Despite his curt reply, Arcade was the next to speak.

“If you had a gun the whole time, why didn’t you-”

“Bullets are in limited supply, baby. And a pistol ain’t enough to take on the whole Legion.”

“Right.”

They’d been rowing in silence for an indeterminable amount of time. The sun hadn’t yet passed overhead, so it was still morning, but the details were foggy.

As were their surroundings. Badum tss.

...Arcade was pretty sure he was sleep-deprived. How had he even gotten himself into this situation? Running- well, rowing- from the Legion, with nobody in the world on his side but a man he’d written off as firstly, conniving and power-hungry, and secondly, dead.

Ignorant of his laments, the lake sloshed around them.

The only warning they got was a slight distortion of the water. A shadow under them.

The lakelurk burst out of the water like a… like a fucking giant lakelurk bursting out of the water, rocking their boat. Arcade fumbled with the oar, trying both to grab it before it fell in the water and to not fall himself.

“Here we go!” 

Benny seemed to be holding on for dear life onto the edges of the dinghy. Still, one hand reached towards his gun.

The lakelurk screeched, but its trajectory had been determined at the moment it jumped. It splashed to their left with a wave of cold water.

“Don’t get your gun wet!” Arcade called out.

“I know!”

What could he do? He didn’t have a weapon. Come on, Arcade, think for once in your life, what do you know about lakelurks? Not a lot! Okay! That wasn’t helpful! He had an oar still in hand. What could he do with it? Did lakelurks have any weak spots?

Benny shot once, catching the thing in its shoulder. It screeched and dove back under water. 

They had to have weak spots. Okay, they were aquatic, and they had sonic attacks, and echolocation. That didn’t help much. Come on....

It rose out of the water like a volcanic eruption.

There was no time to think.

Arcade grabbed the closest thing he had to hand, and in a single motion, swung it wildly against the monster’s head.

The oar snapped, the top careening into the water behind them. The lakelurk screeched, but Arcade could see the dent he’d made was bleeding sluggish translucent blood. He reached for the other oar-

And toppled backwards into the lake.

The water was shockingly cold. His body seized for a moment, involuntary shudders pushing him deeper beneath the surface. The other end of the oar floated past him. He flailed desperately, reaching air for but a moment before he sank again. His glasses- fuck! His glasses! He grabbed at them as they floated away, but it cost him even more depth. He couldn’t see the lakelurk, even if he had been able to put his glasses on. Would he be able to feel it before it had him?

Finally, he felt strong hands grabbing at his own. They shook, but he was pulled up against the side of the boat and high enough to hoist himself over the edge. 

“Where’s the lakelurk?!” Benny yelled.

“I don’t know! I couldn’t see it!”

“There!”

Its rise from the lake’s surface this time was less like a mythical behemoth and more like a dying fish. Head wounds seemed to be equally detrimental for most species.

“Get outta the way, doc, I can-”

Arcade threw the other oar at it.

It impacted,

the lakelurk’s head spurted blood,

and it turned and left.

The oar sank.

#

The two of them stared at the churning water in silence. Arcade dripped morosely.

“That could have gone better.”

“You think?!” Benny rounded on him. “We’re literally up shit creek without oars!”

“What do you want me to do about that?! At least you have a working gun!”

“What do I- you threw the oars! At the lakelurk!” Benny gestured, face twisted like he couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth in that particular order.

“Yes! It left us alone, didn’t it?”

“Wow, great plan. Now all we gotta do is swim to the other side. You sure you ain’t the one with the brain tumor?”

Arcade cast about for a reply. The oars were definitely gone, but it didn’t seem like they’d been turned around in the commotion. Maybe they could just, sort of.... paddle with their hands?

He expressed this idea.

Benny looked at him.

..

...

“Fuck it. Sure.”

#

It was slow going. 

Well, of course it was, they didn’t have any  _ oars _ . But still, their progress felt excruciatingly slow. Arcade felt like at any moment the Legion would catch up with them- bring them back or kill them- and he wasn’t sure which option would be worse. 

The moments passed. On such a strange, drawn-out timescale, he found himself unable to tell how long they paddled like that. His hands were burning from the cold. 

Finally, finally, the boat bumped up against something. Arcade flinched bodily, spinning around to find himself facing land. 

“Oh.” He whispered on an exhale. “We actually got to the other side.” 

A quick glance back to Benny found him just as amazed, but he wasted no time in jumping off and pushing the little dinghy away from the shore. 

The ground was sandy, held together with dried-out grasses and scrub. Rocks jutted out irregularly. 

“Half the trouble was getting here.” Benny sighed, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Now we just need to keep moving.” 

“Hopefully the lakelurks were confined to the lake itself.” Arcade added. 

“Oh, don’t jinx it.” 

They gave themselves a moment to rest. Not too long, though. Who knew if the Legion had followed them. Or- and here was a cheery thought- perhaps they’d found their discarded oars and assumed they’d drowned ignominiously. 

“Let’s go.” Benny was the first to rise from his seat on the ground, futilely trying to pat away the sand on his already irreparable slacks. 

Arcade rose to join him. Benny set a brisk pace across the dry ground- understandable, considering the circumstances. Being taller, Arcade didn’t need to move particularly fast to keep up. 

They’d been walking in silence for a while. A few hours, most likely. The sun had reached the latter half of the sky before Benny, seemingly having found some indeterminable landmark in their surroundings, stopped and turned his head vaguely towards Arcade. 

“Alright. From here we’ve gotta go west- or west by southwest across the plains here. As long as we reach a highway. When we do, it’s simple enough to-” 

“What? I’m only following you until we can get to a landmark I recognise.” 

Benny turned fully, looking a little like he’d tried to go down a flight of stairs on flat ground. 

“What?” 

“I said, I’m not just going to blindly follow you into a slow, sandy death.” 

“I got us out, didn’t I? That should give my plans some credence!” 

“Right. Okay. So, in your obviously all-encompassing and exhaustive plan, what did you think was going to happen after we escaped?” 

“We haven’t escaped. Yet. We’re still in Legion territory, Doc, or did you forget?” 

“And that ties into me following you... how?” 

Benny rolled his eyes. 

“If you wanna go your own way, be my guest. Really! Just mosey on away and see how long it takes you to die of dehydration.” 

They glared at each other. Arcade really didn’t want to be stuck with this guy for any longer than necessary- but it was beginning to seem that necessary was going to be a lot longer than he’d expected. Benny was right, Arcade couldn’t survive on his own out here. Benny at least had a gun in case the Legion caught up to them, and ‘no water’ was the same amount of water for two people as it was for one. 

And, y’know, he seemed startlingly good at navigation. That helped his decision somewhat. 

“Fine. Forget it.” 

“Already forgetting. Like I said, we’re going southwest from here. That should take us through some slightly less dry places and we can find water. Sound good, or d’you wanna keep arguing?” 

“I said it’s fine. Seeing as neither of us have any objections, we can skip over the needling and just keep moving already.” 

They did so. Benny continued to take the lead, showing an incongruous aptitude for traversing the desert while Arcade lumbered behind him like a drunk albino giraffe. 

Noon came and went, each moment beating down on Arcade’s exposed skin like a cascade of molten lead. He hoped Benny had concocted some plan with regards to how they were going to find food, and he wasn’t just following an idiot into the jaws of certain death. 

“Tell me something about yourself, baby. Got any awful secrets? Scorned lovers?” Benny asked, then paused. “...Nah. Anything interesting?” 

“Nothing in particular.” Arcade shrugged awkwardly. 

“Really? Nothing at all?” 

“Can’t we just keep walking?” 

Benny scoffed. 

“But we’re on such uneven footing, baby. You know everything about me, and I only know your name.” 

“Okay, hi, I’m Arcade Gannon, I’m thirty....ish, I’m with the Followers of the Apocalypse, I enjoy medicine, reading books about failed Pre-War socioeconomic policies, and not being dead.” 

“Really? News to me.” 

Arcade flinched. To his credit, Benny seemed to realize he’d put his foot in his mouth quite spectacularly. 

“Right, right, forget it. Well. A pleasure to meet you, I’m Benny, I’m thirty-five, the leader of the Chairmen, I enjoy the finer things in life... like not being dead. Right now, that’s as fine as we’re getting.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” 

They lapsed back into silence. Honestly, the events of yesterday- and the day before it- already felt like a fever dream. The present, too. How was he expected to reconcile his current circumstances with his normal life only three days ago? 

And what was he going to do now? 

He took a moment to examine the man walking beside him. Not for the first time, but Arcade could be forgiven for the need to understand exactly what the hell had happened for him to end up in this situation- with him- and whatever that entailed. God, he didn’t even know what his own internal monologue was talking about. 

Benny seemed more coherent at least. He walked purposefully in a single direction, not getting turned around by the detours they were making around rocks and distant Radscorpion nests and the general murderous miscellany of Nevada’s post-apocalypse.

#

“This is far enough for today.” Benny said, stopping and looking around. Privately, Arcade thought that it had been far enough an hour ago- but alright, sure, there was no looking a gift brahmin in the mouth. 

The place they’d stopped was an outcropping of sandstone, presumably part of the same systems that had formed the giant winding cliffs in the distance. 

The wind drew spirals in the packed, dry sand, blowing lightly through their hair. 

“We can’t just sleep in the open. We’ll be left sitting ducks if the Legion catches up.” Arcade raised his voice, looking around for some cave or, well, anything that might conceal them. But there was nothing, just the outline of some gargantuan building in the distance.

“That’s why we’re sleeping in shifts.” Benny replied easily, looking back the way they’d come. Nothing there but sand and slowly lifting fog. “I’ll take first shift.” 

“I can do it.” Arcade interjected. “Since you’ll just run away as soon as I fall asleep, I’d rather be well-rested in the morning.” 

“What? Baby, who do you take me for? I ain’t a fink!” 

Arcade blinked slowly. Considering the context, he guessed that meant something like… untrustworthy person? Backstabber? Okay, he had no idea. It sounded like some small, furry animal.

“Since when? Because every indicator of your character from every account  _ I’ve _ heard seems to paint you as a backstabbing-”

“From  _ who?! _ Six? That’s one broad! If you  _ really _ want to, I can betray you later, when we’re out of reach of the Legion. For  _ now, _ I think I’ll just go to sleep.” He wedged himself under the outcropping, back against stone and gun in his hand.

“Are you going to shoot me when I wake you up?”

Benny didn’t even dignify that with a response, shutting his eyes and letting his breathing even out almost instantaneously.

Now, stuck keeping watch to the middle of the night, Arcade sighed and let his head thunk against the rock wall. What the hell was he doing? He could make a thousand lists of things that he definitely shouldn’t have done, a million about the things that could go wrong on this little jaunt into the unknown. They were going southwest  _ now _ , sure, but what next? He didn’t particularly  _ want _ to run away like that, but considering what his relationship to the Courier was now, he wouldn’t be safe if he returned to Freeside. Dimly, he remembered a Followers outpost somewhere to the east of New Vegas- but was it to the north or south? Either way, they were heading away from it at too hurried a pace for him to think of returning.

As his thoughts made a turn towards the future, the clouds began to clear. Arcade stared up at the sky for a long moment. There were so many stars.It made sense, of course, light pollution and all that, but he hadn’t had the chance to see it in. Some time.

He turned his gaze back to their surroundings. And now dread began to creep in. 

Was the Legion truly after them? How many? Anyone? Were they running for no reason, or not running fast enough?

The night passed slowly.

#

Arcade finally stood up, back creaking, and went over to Benny. Careful not to stand near his gun, he nudged him with his foot.

Benny stirred.

“Already time?”

“Mm.”

Both of them bone-tired, they switched places without complaint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> friday again!!! this week was SO LONG i feel like i should probably start posting this tuesday AND friday. thoughts?  
> title is from idylls of the king by the mountain goats. thank you everyone that commented, i love yall


	3. 3. spare your face the razor, because no one’s gonna spare the time for you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE another chapter! the public has spoken, i'll be updating every tuesday and friday from here on in!

“I don’t like this.” Arcade muttered, casting a glance at the landscape for any reason he could have to feel this way. 

From the moment they'd awoken, they had set a gruelling pace. They’d skirted around the edges of Boulder City on their way south, Benny citing some disagreements with the local populace and the fact that it seemed to be most of a smoking ruin. Still, Arcade was jumpy, flinching at rocks and bushes-

Oh, no, that was an actual guy.

Without even the shifting of sand to mark his movement, a man jumped up from behind a nearby rock and rushed towards them. Arcade’s mind only had time to catalogue a handful of details- Great Khan, middle aged, wielding a battered-looking pistol- before a shot rang out.

Slowly, like a toppled tree, the Khan went from being upright to lying face down on the compacted scrub.

Arcade sighed, willing his heart to stop racing.

"How many bullets do you have left?" He asked. A Great Khan here meant there might be others nearby.

“...Two,” Benny admitted, spinning the barrel around with a pinched expression. “Let’s hope he’s got some more on him.”

Arcade approached the corpse carefully, turning him over.

His pockets didn’t yield much- a handful of caps, a switchblade, a half-empty packet of Med-X. While he tugged the bag off his back, Benny had pulled the man’s shoes off and was measuring them against his own.

“Is shoe shopping really a priority right now?” Arcade snarked. “We can get you some nice shiny wingtips after we, you know, escape from the Legion.”

Judging that the shoes were close enough in size to be worth taking, Benny pulled them on, discarding his current unshiny wingtips.

“Yeah? I’d like to see you walk in these. Pre-war clothes are, surprise surprise, not meant for the desert.”

(It was almost like he was with the Courier again, emptying dead men’s pockets and bags. The thought of her brought with it a stab of pain- anger or sadness, he didn’t know. )

He shook the thought off and continued with the examination of the Khan’s belongings.

A small flask of water. That was maybe the most valuable thing he had- except it was already half empty.

Okay, what else? A half-empty syringe of Med-X that was definitely an infection risk. He discarded it and continued. There was a pouch of bullets that he’d almost skimmed over, but it could be helpful.

“So, what’s he got?” Benny inquired, jumping a little as he got used to the new shoes.

Arcade took a bullet from the small pouch and held it in the sunlight. He'd never been the best at identifying them.

“9 millimetre rounds, I think.”

“What’d I tell you? The Mojave provides.” Benny chuckled smugly, grabbing the pouch from his hand.

“Oh, you’re the sort of person that anthropomorphizes deserts. Joy.”

“We can keep arguing, and you can keep getting more and more sunburned by the second. Of the two of us, who do you think can survive another hour of doing jack shit?”

“Fine, fine. So what now?”

Benny grabbed the pistol from the Khan’s hand and held it, handle-out, to Arcade.

“Here.”

“H- I’m not a gun person.”

“Not a gun person? Baby, don’t tell me you’re a pacifist. It’d break my heart.” Benny fake-pouted.

“Well. In theory. In practice, I’m more of an energy weapons person. As such.” He sighed. “But I doubt we’ll find any of those. Give me the gun.”

He probably still knew how to shoot, though his training didn’t quite extend to weapons like this…

Either way, in the condition they were in, getting jumped by any real threat would spell out their end.

They kept walking southwest.

As they walked, the vaguely grassy slopes gave way fully to true sand dunes.

Now lacking in both fog and clouds, the sun was offensively bright. Still not as hot as it could have been- the joys of winter, Arcade guessed- but what with the pace Benny was setting, he was as sweaty as ever.

“Slow down,” He groaned, attempting to catch up. “We’re better off moving slower until we find another water source.” The Khan’s water had been divided between the two of them far too long ago. At this point, they had a ticking clock in their stomachs, counting down to dizziness, fainting, and eventually a sweaty and ignominious death.

Benny turned back only to give him an incredulous look, continuing with the same speed.

“If you can’t take the heat, pally, maybe you should’ve stayed in the camp.”

Arcade sped up briefly, trying to work past the cramping in his abdomen and the oppressive, burning sun stripping him of any liquid left in his body.

"Don't- hff- pretend that you're that much better off. Macho posturing will get you nothing.” He debated on mentioning the fact that he was the one who had actually broken them out. What was more important, saving his breath or rubbing that little fact in Benny’s face?

The latter won out.

“And anyway, if I had stayed in the camp, you would be rotting right beside me.”

“OH! That’s rich, baby. Paintin’ yourself as some saviour, come to cure and rescue anyone in need of rescuing.”

“Are you actually kidding me? Including Caesar in that? Will you stop ascribing random ideologies to me just because you think I’m annoying?!”

“Then tell me what your game is! See, I thought you were just some idealistic sop, taking the easy way out ‘cause you couldn’t bear to step on a bug or something. But you’ve got something going on, baby, and you’re stupid if you think I’m about to get blindsided by it.”

“My game? My game is that I don’t  _ trust you. _ And I certainly don’t believe that you have anybody’s best interests in mind but your own.”

“Best interests ain’t the game here, baby. I’m playing the  _ long _ haul. Got some setbacks, sure, but it all comes together in the end.”

“And _ why _ are you so fixated on having me follow you around? You could do all this by yourself. I’m not deluding myself, I  _ know _ I’m not in any way skilled in wilderness survival.”

“You think having a doctor around to save me isn’t a factor?”

...Well, fair enough. He didn’t have an answer for that.

#

The traversal continued. Arcade kept throwing glances over his shoulder at the smallest of sounds, certain that this time it would be the Legion, brandishing their delayed death like a… something. It never was. But that just made him twitchier.

“We won’t be any safer if we go too far south.” Arcade posited. “Even when we’re going southwest, at some point we’ll have to follow the curve of mountains, and that may well herd us back into Legion territory.”

"Exactly. And that’s why we ain’t going all the way down. We’re taking the long way around to Vegas.”

What?

No, really. What?

“I can’t go back to Vegas! For that matter, you can’t go back there either!” Arcade squawked.

Benny rolled his eyes.

“It’s fine. Sure, I gotta lay low for a while- that being the reason why we’re goin’ the long way around in the first place- but if you think I can just give up…”

“Give up?!”

Arcade felt stupid for even having this argument. He should just give up right now, leave Benny here and go as far from any place the Courier might go… but he couldn’t just abandon the Followers. Benny should, though! But he couldn’t reason how he should leave the Mojave when he seemed so intent on staying without arguing Arcade himself into… oh, what the hell.

“Fine! Great. You win. We’re going to go straight back into the place where basically every major threat to our lives is-”

“Not straight back. And the Legion ain’t there either.”

“Alright, fine, not the Legion, but House and the Courier.” He glared. Benny had the decency to at least look like he was thinking about it.

“True. But, very importantly, when she blew up that bunker full of Securitrons she lost any chance of ever getting on House’s good side again. Nobody in Vegas is on her side right now, dig?”

Well, that was food for thought. Six had sided with the Legion at the expense of some very powerful connections. Why? Did she really believe that much in an ideology that would see her disenfranchised and beaten down? What was he missing?

Something was niggling at the back of his mind. 

“Well, if you’re done with the drama, we can keep going. Vegas ain’t waiting for anyone.”

“And yet we’re going the opposite direction.”

Benny seemed taken aback, before actually huffing a laugh.

“True. You caught me out on that one. Can’t keep up the witty comebacks for too long, can I?”

“It seems like it.” Arcade mumbled with a half-smile on his face, even as he turned away.

“Just another one for the road, then.” Benny leaned towards him, hand on his shoulder with an intense expression. “ _ Believe me,  _ baby, soon enough you’ll see me at the top of that place.”

“You do understand I don’t actually want that to happen?” He sighed, preparing for another stretch of walking. “But fine. If we’re following the right highway, we can go over just past the mountains.”

“Fine by me.”

#

The walking was the worst part, really. It had bothered him when he’d travelled with the Courier, and it certainly wasn’t any more fun now. For one, the conversational partners available...

“Say, doc, why don’t you tell me more about yourself?”

“What? Why? Haven’t we done this already? And can’t we just keep walking?”

“I want to know, alright? Can’t a guy have some curiosity?”

"Ha. I'm sure you've heard stories more interesting than mine, honestly."

"You can't be sure unless you tell me, baby. Humour me."

"Okay, then, how is this? I was born, ah... west of here? I was an only child and spent most of my time with my mother. My father died when I was young and I never got over it.” He tripped over his own words in his haste to skip to something less personal. God, why did he have to ramble when nervous? “Then I joined the Followers of the Apocalypse and moved to the Vegas outpost, oh, six years ago. There, I tried to replicate Stimpaks using only natural ingredients, failed spectacularly, then made the stupid decision of going travelling with a courier I'd only known for half an hour total."

"And then she turned on you."

“Yeah, well…  _ Barbari ex fortuna pendet fides _ .”

Benny raised his eyebrows, unimpressed.

“That supposed to mean anything to me?”

“Uh. Right. It means something along the lines of, The allegiance of barbarians changes with their fortunes. Though that’s my own translation so the veracity is debatable.”

They lapsed into silence, feeling only the muted crunch of sand beneath their feet and the slow frying of their skin. God, Arcade hated the desert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from obvious bicycle by vampire weekend! thanks for reading :D i appreciate every comment i get even if i suck at replying \\(-_-)/


	4. 4. somewhere in the desert there's a forest

His tongue felt like lead in his mouth. Both for the heaviness and for the taste of metal. His vision swam. 

“We need to find water soon.” 

“No shit.” Benny coughed out.

Arcade groaned.His mental map of the area was lacklustre to the point where he wasn’t even sure on what side Vegas was any more, let alone any notable bodies of water. Forget that, he would settle for any non-notable bodies of water. Absolutely anything would be fine. He knew Lake Mead was somewhere behind them, but that was it.

“What about that?” He nodded at a shape in the distance. Some sort of dilapidated Old World shell of a building. Something or other. Not the first one they’d seen so far, but it seemed less… occupied than the last.“It might have collected rainwater inside.” 

Benny squinted at it. 

“We might as well. Stay close. Who knows what’s inside.”

Arcade rolled his eyes once, very deliberately in Benny’s field of vision, but complied. The whole boss-and-henchman routine Benny seemed all too eager to slip into was the second most irritating thing about this experience.

#

The dilapidated building was dark and seemingly undisturbed. Light filtered in through smashed windows and holes in the ceiling. There were shelves all around, some leaning half off the wall, some on the floor entirely.

“A veritable cornucopia.” He remarked drily. “Can you check under there?”

Benny hummed an affirmation, kneeling down to tug a shelf back up to standing position. Arcade sidled past him, making a beeline towards the counter and cash register. Not that pre-war money meant anything to him or anyone else, but perhaps any previous looters had missed something under the counter.

At first glance, it seemed it had been picked clean. Empty, dusty wooden shelves, with only scraps of paper and fakes of paint left behind. Arcade squinted closer, bending down and turning his head to get a better view. There was something hanging down from the back wall of the shelving. Some sort of fabric strip, a handle maybe?

“I’ll go look around the back, doc. Yell if the shelves attack you.” Benny announced, halfway out through the door.

Arcade made a vaguely annoyed sound of agreement, returning focus to the handle.

He seized it in his fingers and tugged.

The whole top board of the shelves gave way, showering him in dust. He sputtered, scooting away to clean his glasses. When he looked back, he realised what it was. A false… ceiling? Top shelf? He pulled out the plank entirely, spilling its contents onto the floor.

Cigarette packets abound. And also a wad of pre-war paper money, easily a dozen packets of gum, and a battered issue of  _ ‘True Police Stories’ _ . Arcade swept his hand through the detritus, moving it to the side. The fabric handle he’d seized on in the first place was attached to a small, green fabric bag, a white cross emblazoned on its front with the words  _ First Aid Kit. _ Underneath that, the penned-in words  _ for emergency use only. removal from premeses results in FIRING. no exeptions!! _

Holy shit. 

There was no way he was  _ that _ lucky. He carefully lifted up the first aid kit, examining from every side for any punctures or signs of rot. There was a stain on one side, though dry to the touch. He unzipped it, taking stock. A bottle of rubbing alcohol seemed to have leaked. That explained the stain, at least, and wasn’t too bad for the other supplies contained within. 

Inside, what Arcade might have more poetically described as riches beyond his wildest dreams. A suture kit, bandages, an emergency blanket, the burn gel had turned a concerning colour but that was completely fine because now they had sterile gauze, forceps,  _ disposable gloves _ , was he in heaven? And sterile non-adhesive pads  _ and _ tape! He quickly zipped the kit back up, storing it safely in his makeshift pack. He swept up the cigarettes, gum, and magazine, dumping them in with markedly less care. Perhaps they could sell them if they ever got to go  _ through _ a settlement instead of around.

A scream rang out from outside. A gunshot, and the sound of something hitting the ground.

“ _ ARCADE!” _

#

Arcade couldn’t think. He just moved. Discarding all the loot, he grabbed his gun and ran towards the exit. His heart thudded in his throat, only half from the exertion. What if he was already too late? What could he do, then? Benny was probably already bleeding out, already dead, leaching temperature into the packed sand. He couldn’t pause to think about the ramifications of his thoughts, how he for some reason cared about his unwelcome partner in escape all of a sudden - He couldn’t-

He rounded the corner of the shack and came to face the scene before him. 

A man in mismatched leather armour, machete in one hand, was standing over Benny. Benny, who was sprawled on the ground, blood oozing from his leg, gun pointed firmly at the advancing man.

Alive.

Arcade felt dizzy with relief, even if he couldn’t have recognised the emotion in the moment. He was  _ alive. _ Arcade wasn’t alone.

Then, the man turned to face him, and Arcade put his thoughts aside.

#

So soon after the last attack. Was it something about the two of them that just _ invited _ it? Some sort of instinctual response that had every raider and idiot in a five-mile radius just itching to get some good violence underway? 

Arcade fell backwards, barely dodging a machete swipe. The man was plainly dressed, with mismatched but well-kept armour. A far sight more put together than the Great Khan they’d encountered earlier. But why was he-

“By the will of Caesar, you will  _ die by my hand! _ ” He roared.

Okay. That was why.

Fuck.

Arcade scrambled up, adrenaline making every movement jerky and overbalanced. Behind him, Benny was doing- something. He didn’t know, he couldn’t turn to look, even as he dodged out of the way again and a bullet passed harmlessly past both him and the Legion- spy? Scout? Whatever he was. Arcade took advantage of the momentary pause to grab the- his- gun, fumbling a little but training it finally onto the man’s chest. He shot.

The bullet went wildly off target, the recoil making him lose his balance and drop the gun. God, why had he ever decided to learn energy weapons instead of normal guns? Trick question, it was because he was raised by Enclave remnants on the scraps of their military might. Oh well. Now his shoulder hurt and a maniac with a machete was advancing on Benny. 

He rallied, shooting again at the man while Benny did the same. 

Both the bullets reached their marks this time, one burying itself in his leg while the other grazed his shoulder. He shouted in pain, lunging at Arcade.

A line of pain blossomed down his arm and he reeled, scream on his lips. Blood mingled with dust and dirt on the desert ground, spraying out in a wide arc as he spun around. He couldn’t stop to check the damage. But at such close range, surely a bullet wouldnt miss…?

He grabbed the gun and shot again.

With only one hand, the recoil was even worse. But he’d been right about the distance. The man’s chest bloomed red as he fell back, the thump of his body hitting the ground the only sound audible over the ringing in Arcade’s ears.

He stood there, breathing heavily, for only a moment before turning to where Benny sat/lay/was sprawled.

“Your leg. Are you-”

“I’m fine. I just need to-” Benny tried to get up, only to fall back down hard.

#

Arcade sat down heavily beside him, Benny still trying and failing to find a position for his leg that didn’t transform it into- judging from his face- a mass of agony.

“Wait. Your arm.”

Arcade looked at it blearily. Oh, huh, that was a lot of blood. Would you look at that.

“Oh. That… is going to need stitches.” He laughed, suddenly. “I found a first aid kit, in the building. I’m… going to go get it.”

Benny stared at him, eyebrows raised.

“You good there, doc? The blood loss ain’t making you loopy?”

“Um. Perhaps. I just need to clear my head. I’ll get the first aid kit.” He wrapped his coat around the wound, applying pressure.

  
  


He had no idea how he got from there to the building and back again. But suddenly, he was staning back in front of Benny, first aid kit dangling awkwardly from fingers.

“Alright. Can you sew? Because I-”

“What?

“I asked if you can sew. I need someone to stitch my hand together!”

“You’re having me on, baby. You admitted it yourself, you’ve been a Follower of the Apocalypse for years! I don’t doubt you’re better at doing these doctor things than anyone I can see here.” 

"I didn't do doctor things! That's the problem- All I ever did was sit in a tent and pipette plant goo from one beaker to another!" He huffed loudly, wiping his glasses on the side of his coat. “The fact that they wanted me to do brain surgery on their evil overlord is inexplicable enough by itself, but from the way Vulpes Inculta was talking, the Courier had- had sold me for that specific purpose and with total confidence I could do it.”

“Right. Back on topic- you mean you can’t fix your own arm?”

“Meaning I can’t fix my own arm. Someone else’s, sure, though it likely wouldn’t look too good, but I can’t do sutures one-handed. Look, I can talk you through it.”

Benny cringed away.

“Hey, hey, hey, steady hands for shooting are one specific thing, and this ain’t it!”

“What? Fine, forget it, we don’t have _ time  _ for this! Just hold the two sides of the wound together from the bottom and I can-” He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “-I can do my best.”

Benny grimaced but complied. The spike of pain as he brought the wound together had Arcade’s vision doubling and his knees almost buckling under him. Fuck, he needed to keep it together. If he couldn’t be of use to himself, what could he even do?

Sweat dripping down his face, vision doubling, he sewed his arm back together.

Stitch.

By.

Stitch.

He’d never had to do this with the Courier. Despite all her faults, and all the extra faults he’d discovered in the last few days, she always seemed to have a surplus of Stimpaks.

Finally, he finished, and Benny wrapped the cut securely with bandages and gauze. Arcade swayed on his feet.

“Okay. Okay. Now give me your leg.”

Benny laughed. A pained, half-keening sound.

“Baby, you’re so out of it you almost fainted just then and there. My leg ain’t exactly a top priority.”

“I’m fine. Just... can you pull your pant leg up? I can cut it open, but...”

“You wanna preserve my modesty. I get it.” He smiled at the indignant expression on Arcade’s face. “I said it was fine. Focus on yourself, doc.”

“So all your talk about wanting to have a doctor with you was just-  _ bullshit _ ? Just... let me take a look at it. It can’t hurt.”

Benny frowned at him, but complied.

“Check if the Legionnaire’s got anything on him first. Water, booze, anything.”

“Probably not alcohol. But sure, I can check.”

Sure enough, there was a waterskin. Far better made than the Khan’s patchwork one.

Without Stimpaks, or even a bottle of whiskey or something, the chances of infection were high. The chances of healing wrong were higher. But what could they even do? He didn’t have a full doctor’s kit. He barely had  _ half _ of one. He rinsed out the wound with water.

That wasn’t that bad, actually. It wouldn’t need stitches, at least, and that by itself was a miracle and a half.

As he finished wrapping the wound, he realized the sun had already passed its apex. Arcade tied up the bandages and stood up shakily.

“Should we… stay the night here? You can’t move, and…”

“It ain’t ideal.” Benny coughed, attempting to stand up again. “But you’re right. Especially with your hand. Is there some back room to that… what is it. A gas station?”

“I- maybe. We can check, I didn’t have time to.” 

Arcade offered his uninjured hand to Benny. He took it carefully, pulling himself up without unbalancing either of them. He leaned on Arcade’s shoulder. 

“Lead the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic now has a playlist! check it out here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Bgx7QKTeKQj2AUOReXakV?si=ut0kMPMKQnyU4l5bCDa4yA for some cool arcade-centric tunes.  
> title is from death with dignity by sufjan stevens


	5. 5. the paper's shot to pieces, the kids don't stand a chance

They returned to the building. The gas station, Benny had said, and he supposed that was it. Everything was just as he’d left it, but for the trail of blood as he’d gone back to search for the first aid kit. 

As they’d expected, there was a back door that Arcade had completely missed, leading to a desolate breakroom and a bathroom that was, surprisingly, not as awful as he’d expected. Oh, sure, it was entirely dilapidated and rusted apart, but there was only minimal fungus growth. The joys of the desert.

They settled down in the breakroom. Sunset colours filtered in through the small window, basking everything in a purple glow. Arcade leaned back against the wall, trembling from the drop in adrenaline. 

“Should we even be staying here? Yes, I  _ know _ you can’t walk, but…”

“We’re better defended here than on the road. We’ll keep going tomorrow morning.” Benny said, voice uncharacteristically soft as he shot inscrutable glances at Arcade. 

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Well, since we won’t be moving from this spot in the foreseeable future, you can tell me about your  _ grand plan _ to take over Vegas.”

“It’s complicated.” Was the kneejerk response.

Arcade huffed out a half-laugh. 

“We have time.” 

Benny rolled his eyes, making a show of grabbing one of the cigarette packets off the floor and lighting one up. The lighter was ostentatious, dented in places, and covered in blood. A veritable microcosm of its owner. 

The pinprick of light blazed in the dim back room.

“Well then, ask away.” 

Arcade took a moment to gather his thoughts. There wasn’t actually that much he wanted to know- or was there, actually? He didn’t know what he should want to know. The big picture eluded him as much as the little details, but he could begin with…

“What’s the Platinum Chip?” 

“The chip? It's the House edge- literally. It's what Mr. House needs to stack the odds in his favour. Basically, as far as I could tell, it’s a sort of data storage device. See, House had built himself a whole bunker full of Securitrons, back before the war. The data on the Chip would’ve been used to upgrade them all.”

“So you did anything you could to get it.” At this point, it didn’t even surprise him that Robert House had his own robot army. Sure. Why not.

“Mhm. Well, at that point all I knew about it was that it was important to House.I hacked into his systems, got the travel path for the one courier carrying the chip out of the half dozen decoys he hired, then hired some muscle for good luck.” He took a deep drag of his cigarette. “A bunch of chemmed-up original losers. Still, they got the job done. Or so I thought.” 

Arcade hummed an acknowledgment. 

“And afterwards? When you had the chip?” 

Benny shifted in place, looking everywhere but at him.

“You know. Your Courier friend didn’t tell you?”

“I know about  _ that. _ ” The effects of it were evident whenever Six had brushed her hair away from her forehead. “And then?”

“And  _ then _ , I decided I was done with those losers I mentioned- Great Khans, they got stuck doing some bullshit in Boulder city- and concurrently decided, no reason in particular, that I didn’t want to bother payin’ them, so…”

“Literally why.” 

“What?” 

“You said it yourself, you didn’t have any reason to do that to them! Do you just… compulsively betray people?! How does that even work?” 

Benny glowered at him. 

“Compulsively- y’know what, baby, I ain’t even getting into that. It was a stupid decision, sure, but it’s not like it killed me! I’m fine- and it’s fine.” He shook his head. “Thought I was being so clever, but I made all the mistakes of an original loser.” 

“Mm.” It was interesting, to a point, how he viewed his decisions. But Arcade could barely keep his thoughts straight in his own head, let alone whatever Benny was thinking at any given moment. The blood loss and trauma was catching up to him quickly, making him lightheaded as he stood up. He needed a breath of fresh air, or something, but the already meager supply of blood he had was all rushing to his feet, making him lean back against the wall.

“Going somewhere?”

“I… was going to. I think I may need to sit back down.” 

He slid down, coat dragging up and falling over his head. Benny was now looking at him with a genuinely concerned expression, carefully eyeing his bandaged arm. 

“Sure. Listen, doc, why don’t you do yourself a favour and get some shut-eye? You don’t look too good, and it’s not- heh- not like  _ I’m _ going anywhere.” He gestured to his leg in demonstration. 

Arcade sighed, thankful for the excuse, but still wary. And also weary.

“Wake me up if you need to sleep, though.” 

Benny laughed.

“Ease up on the chivalry, baby. My leg ain’t  _ that  _ bad. I can sleep in the morning, then we get going in the afternoon.”

He nodded. Using his arm as a pillow, he drifted to sleep to the smell of cigarette smoke.

#

True enough, the full night’s sleep helped Arcade immeasurably. He spent the morning still resting, the pain in his arm resolved to a dull throbbing. He could barely move his fingers without pain shooting through his arm, up into his head like the world’s worst migraine. At least the possibility of movement precluded any irreparable damage.

Benny, on the other hand, seemed not as much worse for wear. He found some shopping bags under one of the store’s shelves and set out to strip away anything of value that remained inside. His leg seemed fine, for a given value of fine- he was limping and slow, but hadn’t bled through the outer layer of bandages. God, that was the lowest possible bar for how a wound was healing. He was a terrible doctor.

Benny returned with everything else the Legionnaire had had on him. Dried fruit and meats chief among the supplies. They ate in almost amiable silence, each lost in their own thoughts. 

Finally, they packed up and left. The weight at their backs felt like both a blessing and a curse- both safety, another day of life, and a ball and chain weighing them down as their invisible stalker got ever closer, breathing down their necks with the paranoia of their experience the day before.

The sun had retreated for the moment, leaving only their footfalls on the flaking concrete and the low buzz of their breath. Arcade let his gaze rest on the horizon, then on the outlines of Benny’s face against the sky for just a moment before he turned back to watching the horizon. Didn’t want him to think Arcade was a creep that watched people randomly like that. 

#

“We’ve already had the whole talk about my motivations,” Benny began abruptly. “The whole Vegas thing and all. But you, doc, are still being vague about yours. So what’s your deal?”

“My deal? I don’t have a deal.”

“Political stance. Chem dream. Anything you wanna call it. You know Latin, you talk about philosophy… I’m sorry, baby, but I just can’t believe your only ambition is to stay in that Old Mormon Fort and pull doorknobs outta unmentionable places.”

“Then don’t.” Arcade sniped. “If you want me to open up to you, you need me to expect that you  _ won’t _ start arguing.”

“Historically,  _ you’ve _ been the one nit-picking every choice I’ve made. Not the other way around.”

“That is… patently untrue. But if you’re going to goad me into revealing my motivations, I-” He stopped. “Oh. This is because you want to know if I can be trusted.” He felt his cheeks warm a little. Good one, Arcade. Just call it right out. No tact, nothing.

“No shit. So can you?”

“Well. Let’s run through it. I believe that New Vegas is a waste of resources, namely electricity, water, and building materials, spent chasing the memory of an Old-World relic as everyone around it suffers. Is that succinct enough? I have no allegiances to anyone but the Followers of the Apocalypse, I feel like I should mention that for completeness’ sake, but that doesn’t mean I can’t criticize other factions. On an interpersonal level, I understand that you plan to take over New Vegas, and I don’t actually have any problems with that as a concept, but I simply don’t believe that any other connections, other  _ allegiances, _ you have and anything you do while in power will be for the better.” He took a deep breath. “And that’s about it. I don’t trust your motives.”

“Baby, my  _ “allegiance” _ is towards  _ Vegas herself. _ I do what I gotta do to keep her swingin’, dig?” His accent seemed to thicken as he gestured. 

Despite himself, Arcade felt his blood boil. 

“People’s lives are being ruined! You can’t possibly not see it, Freeside- no, even New Vegas- is a mess of drug addiction and petty gang wars. I would think that as those in possession of resources, you have an obligation to do something about it.”

Benny laughed, fake and cloying.

“What world do you  _ live in? _ You can’t expect that from anyone here. What do you propose I do?”

“If you closed the casinos, Freeside would-”

“If I closed the casinos? If I closed the casinos, baby, there’d be rioting in the streets!”

“There’s already rioting in the streets.”

“Not on the Strip, though.”

“And that’s all you care about. Not Freeside.”

Benny scoffed and looked away.

They continued walking in silence. Yet again, despite himself, Arcade realized he missed travelling with the Courier. At least with a Pip-boy, they could listen to music.

Wasn’t that just pathetic? He was here missing someone who had sold him into slavery with nary a regret, just because she had good taste in  _ music. _ God, he was tired of this. All of this! All the pointless arguments with a man he couldn’t possibly trust as they trekked through the empty expanses of the Mojave desert to escape a theoretical danger- though perhaps less theoretical than it had been before that Legion scout attacked, he couldn’t dismiss that as pure chance, okay, perhaps they were being hunted like his fear wanted him to believe and now he was thinking in circles- and they just kept arguing! 

Arcade understood that Benny certainly wasn’t the worst person to be stuck with for this extended period of time. They were on their what, third day? But that was already clear. He could have been any number of other, worse possibilities. A member of the Brotherhood of Steel. Or NCR. 

What he got instead was Benny, who was… who was himself. Arcade felt loath to categorize him, as stupid as that sounded. Selfish, sure. Untrustworthy, granted. Unwilling to make changes for the betterment of a society he was willing to ‘rule’ in writing, but obviously not for very long if he prioritized his own gain over the long-term? Yes. No other snarky comment, that was literally just what it was. But at least he didn’t seem inclined to pry too far into Arcade’s past, and not with the intent of finding anything. That was a blessing all in itself, considering his. Well. Not at all minor speed bump of a prior association.

#

Night came with little change in their disposition. They made camp properly that day, building a fire with the copious amounts of dry bushes around. Perhaps, by the end of their little sojourn, they could even have  _ actual proper supplies. _ Imagine that.

“Look, doc, we can’t stay like this forever. Can’t we bury the hatchet for a moment?”

“Can we? I’m genuinely unsure if you’ve noticed by now, but I don’t know what you want with me. Allegiances and histories aside, you have no reason to keep me around." Benny just looked at him, brows furrowed in an expression that seemed almost like genuine hurt.

“And the whole mess with my leg earlier was what, chopped liver? I ain’t a trained doctor.”

“I- right. Sure.”

The fire, or at least the final smoldering ember, of their argument well and truly snuffed, they settled in on either side of the small- non-metaphorical- fire. 

  
  
  


The Courier had never been cagey about what had happened that fateful night outside of Goodsprings. She’d recounted it promptly the first time he’d dared ask, staring into their campfire with a distant expression.

_ This bastard wearing this gaudy checkered suit was standing there, lighting a cigarette while he waited for me to wake up. My hands were tied, my mouth was gagged… So he talked at me. ‘From where you're kneeling it must seem like an 18-carat run of bad luck,’ he said. And ‘Truth is the game was rigged from the start.’ Bullshit like that. Why does it matter? _

She didn’t elaborate further, and Arcade didn’t pry. The circular scar on her forehead spoke for itself.

Now, looking at the man in question, he could almost recreate what it must have looked like. What those words had sounded like coming from his lips, twisted into a rueful smile. How it must have looked to see him raising his gun to her forehead.

Intellectually, as a Follower and someone who generally tried to be a good person, he knew he shouldn’t feel the way he did about that incident. No matter what she had gone on to do, the Courier at that moment had been an innocent bystander in Benny’s grand plan. Only killed to tie up a loose end.

And yet. And yet.

He remembered the feeling of Vulpes Inculta’s eyes on him as he operated, hands betraying him with their steadiness. It was a trolley problem, but both tracks stretched into the horizon, bodies upon bodies upon bodies and his was the first. His was always the first on the tracks. Wherever he turned.

He remembered the smell of the Fort- excrement and blood and pus dripping off the crucified bodies. Half dead or more, and he didn’t dare look closer to check on the “or more.” The Courier had looked, though, eyes slowly sweeping over every detail of the gruesome scene without flinching. She’d stared out over the hill, the training soldiers all but specks beneath them, and turned to look at him.

She’d smiled.

Arcade snapped out of his reverie with a jolt, only to find Benny staring right back.

His brows were furrowed, face twisted in a strange expression.

“What?” Arcade bit out.

“Hm? Nothing.” He looked away.

“Is there something on my face?”

“Other than the dirt?”

"Yeah, I'd love to hear a detailed overview of my face stains. Go ahead."

They looked at each other in a blank impasse, mouths twitching as they both tried not to smile. The dark mood fully chased away, Arcade found it in himself to relax and stare out at the stars above them. It was ridiculous how even the smallest amount of light pollution made such a big difference. The sky above New Vegas was empty and gray at night, but this...

“What did you mean earlier, about how you didn’t know the Platinum Chip’s purpose until later?” Arcade asked as the question popped into his head.

“I only found out in the Fort. Your Courier came up to me to gloat about it.” He snorted. “That broad didn’t know when to shut up. All  _ you’ll be crucified on top of Hoover Dam _ this and  _ you’ll see the final triumph of the Legion _ that.”

“Oh.”

He knew that Benny had no reason to lie about her wording. But it still felt strange-sickening, how different his impression of the Courier was to Arcade’s. He’d been wilfully ignorant. How many had paid the price for that?

He sighed and attempted to get comfortable on the packed dirt. Their pace couldn’t afford to falter now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoooo this was a big one!! hope yall enjoyed it! comment if you did every comment sustains me ~~like a blood sacrifice to a dying god~~  
>  title is from 'the kids don't stand a chance' by vampire weekend!


	6. 6. if this mirror were clearer, i would see myself fall

“There’s Cazadors ahead.” Benny observed tensely, ducking behind a large-ish rock. “Just off the road.” 

Arcade nodded, trying to catch a glimpse through the heat-distorted air. Sure enough, three Cazadors lazily flitted from side to side in a patch of shade. 

“... Okay, I have no idea how we’ll get past. I’m all ears for whatever you figure out.” 

Benny didn’t answer right away, eyes tracking the mutated bugs as they flew. 

“Three... We can make a run for it on the other side, if we stay out of sight until that rock over there. Someone’s gotta bring up the rear, though. And... no offense, doc, but a gun isn’t exactly your best weapon.” 

“No offense taken. It’s a fact. I’m not exactly some whirlwind of death with this thing.” 

They’d gotten moving early in the morning. Benny seemed to be healing well, almost  _ insultingly well _ considering that Arcade still could barely move his left hand. The strange, tense atmosphere of the day before had been halfway chased away on the road, both of them seemingly coming to the independent realizations that it would do neither of them any good to stay annoyed over political stances that were irrelevant in the moment. Right now, all that was relevant was the obstacle in front of them and the way they would survive it. Just like the last… five billion. Again and again, there was something, and they ran away or killed it, and one of them got injured, and then they sat around and argued and Arcade just wished that  _ something _ would change. Something. Anything. It was like there was this feeling of, of  _ pressure _ , just waiting for something to change, interpersonally or politically or-

“Doc. You awake? ‘Cause we can’t exactly  _ go _ anywhere until we deal with these bugs.”

“Oh! Right. Sorry. Yes. I’m here.”

The Cazadors circled the road lazily. He could see their nest in plain view, shaded by an outcropping of rock. They couldn’t go straight through on either side of the road. Maybe if they crossed here and kept low as they could…?

He expressed the idea. The road sloped suddenly to their right, cascading down into sand and brush. It would be difficult to maneuver through the coarse weeds, especially with his arm being what it was, but it was all they could do, wasn’t it?

#

As he’d expected, it sucked. He was pretty sure he’d torn one of his stitches, and blood oozed through the bandages like the inexorable march of life and death. He bit back a whimper, following Benny as they crawled single-file through the sharp desert plants.

And always, always there was that buzzing, Arcade couldn’t believe that they hadn’t passed the perimeter of the bugs’ path already, but still they buzzed in his ears and made him flinch as clouds passed overhead.

It wasn’t even that long. But time dilated in that helpless half-fear. Maybe it had been two minutes, or five. The stress was getting to him.

Then, wingbeats on the back of his neck. He reared back with a shout, Benny in front of him scrambling up as the Cazador descended. Arcade pulled his gun out, shooting wildly at it. The bullet grazed its wing, and it swooped at him, stinger bared.

He threw himself to the side. 

He realized what a bad idea that had been in waves.

First, as his bad arm twisted under him with a blinding flash of white-hot pain.

Then, as Benny fell with a choked scream, the side of his stomach and the Cazador’s stinger both coated in gleaming red.

And as the bug descended on him, too, he twisted around and shot it through the wing. 

It screeched, falling to the ground with a dull thump. 

He shot again. He couldn’t stop, not to look at where Benny struggled on the ground, or at the two other Cazadors quickly approaching them.

Finally,  _ finally _ , it went down. Arcade couldn’t even take a moment, he pulled Benny up by the collar of his coat and pushed him onwards. 

“Keep running!” He choked out. They just needed to keep moving. Even though the exercise was doing nothing good for the poison now certainly coursing through Benny’s veins. Even though Arcade felt like his throat was filling with burning-hot sand. If they got far enough, the other two would give up and return to their original positions, but until then they needed to keep running.

Benny stumbled beside him. Arcade reached out on instinct with his good hand, grabbing him by the shoulder and hoisting him back up. They couldn’t afford to stop. The buzzing sound behind them grew fainter as their energy sapped. Every breath Arcade took was a small victory. 

“L- left.” Benny gasped out. Arcade swerved on instinct, dropping off the road to continue running through now clear sandy ground. “There’s- hh- we can hide-”

It was a split of the road away from the highway, a beaten path leading to a ruin. Two walls remained standing, with no indication of what the rest of the building had been. But that was enough.

They stumbled towards it, Benny now leaning his weight entirely on Arcade. Arcade, who was light-headed, not even looking where he was going, instead staring back at where they’d come for any sign of their buggy pursuers. The sun beat mercilessly overhead, but for the brief reprieves between clouds that only served to unnerve him more. Benny groaned, hand pressed tightly to his bleeding abdomen. Oh god, they didn’t have any antivenom. That was bad, that was really bad, but they just needed to get to shelter first. And then he could panic.

Who was he kidding, he was already panicking.

The two of them slumped against the inner corner of the two walls, now in the cold, cold shade. Arcade could barely stand…

But he needed to help Benny. Whatever qualms they’d had, he couldn’t just let him  _ die. _

“Do you have any antivenom in your pack? Any, any unknown liquids from the Legionnaire?”

Benny just groaned. Right, fair enough. Arcade set to work bandaging and cleaning the wound as best he could, all the while helpless as Benny’s skin went waxy and he began to whimper.

“What were you  _ thinking, _ jumping in front of it like that?” Arcade muttered to himself, dumping the contents of Benny’s bag on the ground. Mostly the same things he had, it seemed Benny was the one to take the matches, but there was nothing even resembling an antivenom. No, no, no, couldn’t it have been-

There. Just an empty bottle, made of cloudy glass. Sealed with a cork, which wobbled out of place as he picked it up.

Benny groaned.

“I- we don’t have any antivenom.” Arcade whispered in horror, not watching for his reaction. “Okay. You need to stay hydrated, we need to keep your temperature down, can’t stop the circulation of the venom already, it’s far too late for that, but-”

“Just- mgh- gimme it str’ght. ‘M I gonna die?”

“No.  _ No.” _ He said firmly. “You won’t die. It’s just… not going to be a fun night?” Arcade continued, because he hadn't become the tent-dwelling researcher cryptid he was today by having a sensible bedside manner. “No, you’re going to be  _ fine. _ It’s fine.”

He leaned over to check Benny’s heart rate and temperature. It was cold enough in the shade, but if it got any hotter he’d have to start using their meager supply of water for cold compresses. As cold as anything could be in the middle of the literal desert, anyway.

His heart rate was high. Abnormally so. Of course it would be, but it was still chilling to feel that thump-thump-thump against the curve of his jaw.

... He had very soft skin.

Like a rubber band, Arcade snapped himself back into Doctor Mode. Right. Better keep a note of the heart rate somewhere, check for pupil dilation...

This was the worst part. He was so helpless, just  _ stuck in place _ watching his patient’s slow decline. And unlike in the Old Mormon Fort, he had nothing else to do. No other people to help, no pointless research that would never go anywhere. 

He swept through their supplies again. Still nothing. Even some long-forgotten unsanitary syringe of Med-X would have been helpful. 

But there was nothing.

Dread gnawing at his heart, Arcade settled in to wait.

#

As the minutes, then hours, ticked by, Benny had graduated from lethargy and incoherence to violent shuddering. His shirt was soaked with sweat. Arcade kept a close eye on him as time passed. He only moved away to get some kindling and set up a small campfire. Being cold in this state could hurt him as much as overheating.

" Y’r eyes hurt, doc.” Benny mumbled, looking at him with an unfocused gaze.

"What?" Concerned at the nonsensical outburst, Arcade slid forwards until he was sitting opposite Benny. He laid his hand over his forehead and smoothed his hair back-

Clinically. Like a doctor.

“You’re burning up. I- can you drink anything? Because you’ve been sweating a lot , and-”

"Huh? Ffffun. This how I die?" 

"Wh- no! No, just don't overexert yourself. Try to.. fall asleep, if you can. Drink some water. You aren't going to die now." 

Benny laughed, wincing. Between the poison’s effects and the late hour, he looked… vulnerable. For the first time, it was like he couldn't pretend to be in control of the situation. 

"Y'know, I killed people f'r this." 

Arcade flinched. 

"I know." 

"Killed ol' Bingo, when we w'r still th' Boot Riders. Not Chairm’n." He winced, like his own words were too loud. 

"Boot Riders…" The name seemed familiar. A memory surfaced, from when he’d been making his way towards the Mojave the first time. Somebody had mentioned... "Tribals?" 

"Ssshsh. H. Sure." 

Arcade hadn't been out much when he'd first come to Freeside. The booming population required an equal boom in Follower resources, but that just didn't happen. He'd only been dimly aware that something had happened in the Strip- Old World-style crime families didn’t just pop up out of nowhere overnight, after all. He’d never put much thought into it. So, really, it shouldn’t have been surprising that this man, who… well, he wasn’t impeccably dressed, but he had been, and his hair had some pomade still left in it… Anyway, it shouldn’t have been so surprising that he had been a tribal. 

Well. It seemed they both had pasts they’d rather not talk about. 

That comparison made, he almost felt bad for having found out in this manner. Hopefully if the situation was reversed he would be slightly more circumspect with his history. It was chilling to imagine himself, prone like this, mumbling out every secret of his life that could have ever gotten him killed.

"...Stop talking." Arcade said instead. "You'll regret whatever you say now after the effects of the poison wear off." 

“Mm.” Benny agreed easily, though he didn’t know if it was an actual agreement or just a vague grunt of pain and delirium. 

#

Arcade slept in fits and starts. He would lie down and tell himself he needed to sleep, but hear a hitch in Benny’s breath and open his eyes just to check on the other man- but realise the fire had blown out. Then he would fan it back to life, checking pulse and temperature while he was at it- Time: who knew, heartbeat: back to normal, temperature: still elevated. And then he would conk out instantly. Then wake up again, his heart in his throat. Rinse and repeat.

It was some time in the middle of the night. Still. Arcade hadn’t known that night time could have ever stretched this long, like a solar eclipse and winter solstice rolled into one, an indistinguishable expanse of hungry darkness.

“Arcade.” 

He’d never heard Benny say his name before. Not like whatever this was, quiet and vulnerable and only half a whisper. 

“I’m here.” He whispered back. “Are you still alive?”

“Don’t feel like it. But that… No, that ain’t what I’m trying to say. Doc, why are you  _ doin’ _ this for me?” 

And back to  _ doc. _ Though the sound of his own name lingered in Arcade’s ears.

“It’s what I do.” He said. That wasn’t true. He could have done a million other things and have had them be  _ what he did _ . “I didn’t want you to die in front of me.” That was closer to true.

A hand found his own. Still clammy, still hot, still shaking, but his knuckles dragged over the back of his hand like a question.

“Don’t talk like that.” Benny whispered. “I owe you too much already.” 

The hand retreated, Benny’s breathing slowing as he began the descent into sleep.

“You don’t.” Replied Arcade, voice far too real for the ethereal, unseen nature of the conversation. “You stopped me from committing suicide, don’t you remember? You don’t owe me.” 

It was the first time he’d said it out loud. Suicide, not just a vague miscalculation that he could write off, not a bad idea that he didn’t go through with, he couldn’t let that be all, it was a suicide attempt and he would have been dead.

But he wasn’t, because of Benny.

Arcade didn’t sleep well that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO i was so excited to post this chapter. title is from ruler of everything by tally hall


	7. 7. there's a jet black crow droning on and on and on

He woke up early in the morning with the same urgency as every time he’d woken up in the night preceding. Heart in his throat, sick to his stomach. Feeling just as badly rested, too. But it was light out, so he stood up and cracked his back and turned to check on Benny- only to see him not there.

“Morning, doc.” Came from behind him. He turned back again to see Benny, still grey-faced and tired-looking, but sitting by the remnants of last night’s fire.

“How are you feeling? Any dizziness, confusion, hallucinations? Random bursts of emotion?”

“Not that I can tell. But I don’t think I’m in a position to tell. You’re here, looking, so how do I look?

He looked… bad. His hair plastered to his forehead, eyes still bloodshot and watery. But he was alive, at least, which said good things for his ability to recover. Dead people tended not to. 

“Last night, you said… No, actually, do you remember anything you said?” Arcade asked carefully. “You were pretty delirious.”

Benny winced.

“Hope I didn’t bore you. Or say anything stupid. I remember I…” He squinted suddenly at Arcade. “Huh. Did I actually…”

“What?”

“No, nothing. Must’ve been a dream.” 

Privately, Arcade breathed a sigh of relief. He could guess what that was about- whatever condition Benny was in earlier had made him say things he didn’t really mean, or at least be far too frank with them. That was fine, Arcade had known as much. 

“Come here. I need to check on the wound.”

Benny got up with a huff that indicated pain, staggering over and almost throwing himself at Arcade’s feet. He sighed and kneeled down, first aid kit already in hand. They were running low on bandages, which was concerning, but there was nothing he could do about it. Only be more economical with what little he had left.

The sting was both better and worse than he’d expected. Better, because it was a shallow wound to begin with and it certainly hadn’t had any space to get _deeper._ Worse, because the skin around it had swelled up and reddened. He forced himself to look at the facts of it. It was likely there was still venom coursing in Benny’s bloodstream, and it was also likely that the injury wouldn’t heal properly, and, well, at least it was unlikely that he’d damaged any internal organs but that would come too if there was even the smallest complication. 

He rinsed it carefully with what little water they had left, offering the rest to Benny to drink. He gulped it down quickly, before stopping and pushing it back towards Arcade with a sheepish expression. He waved it away.

“You need it more.”

“Doesn’t mean you don’t need it. Have a drink, doc, it won’t kill you.”

Arcade drank, just a single gulp that barely quenched his thirst but still felt like heaven.

“Thank you.”

#

They shared a small breakfast of the remainder of the legion spy’s dried rations. The gum they’d pilfered from the gas station was dry and chalky, as Arcade discovered.

“So.” Benny began. “We’re gonna get going at some point, right?”

“Do you feel up to it, or is this a rhetorical question?”

“I’m _fine._ It’ll take another day, two days, for the venom to get flushed, but the damage is done- I mean. Forget that. I’m fine.”

Arcade blinked, uncomprehending for a long moment before it clicked, and the events and revelations of the night before slotted into place. Right. Benny had been a tribal before his nominal ascension to Vegas. Again, that sense of familiarity crept in. His own fumbling attempts at trying to hide his Enclave past, from the Courier first and foremost but really from everyone he’d ever met. They were in the same situation, almost.

And that gave him an idea.

  
  


“We should find somewhere to trade. A settlement or... something similar.”

“Why? For the next Legion spy to find us wrapped up in a nice big bow with a giant neon arrow pointing at us?”

“We’re no less sitting ducks in a _populated_ area than we are out here.”

“So why should we change anything?

“Why sh- We’ve been systematically wiped across the floor by every _possible_ hazard this desert has to offer! Your leg and stomach are both still healing, not to mention the aftereffects of the cazador venom. Continuing to skirt around the borders of every setlement we come across would just be stupid.”

Benny relented, sighing and grimacing his way into a concession.

“Yeah, fine, I hear you. Do you have anything in _mind_ , or are you just complaining for the fun of it?”

“Novac. I’m reasonably sure it’s on our way, and I have… an acquaintance there. We can rest overnight, trade and see what medical attention we can get for ourselves, then set off in the afternoon tomorrow.”

"Novac? Of all places. Novac." He groaned in abject horror. "Baby, we can't go there!" 

"What? Why not?" 

“I’ve gone through there already, with those Khan grunts after shootin’ you know who.” 

"You think they'll, what, recognize you?" 

"And kill me, yeah!" 

Arcade sighed. The thought of _I wouldn't let them_ died on his lips. 

"I'm sure that isn't going to happen." 

“It’s my grave you’re digging.”

“Then let me dig it and stop being melodramatic. I’m _tired_ of this.”

There was a lull in their back-and-forth. 

“I…” It seemed to pain Benny as much as his wound to say it. “Oh, forget it. You’re right. Can’t expect you to stick with me through all this, can I? You’ve been put through the wringer, doc, again and again, and it don’t take a genius to see you never wanted to be in that position in the first place.”

Arcade was lost for words. Not to point out the obvious, but that was. Pretty much a complete 180.

“So. We go to Novac. And I gotta give you the choice to go your way from there.”

“What? No.”

Benny stared in naked shock.

“Wh- then- what was-”

Arcade grimaced at his own lack of tact.

“I didn’t mean it like that. Thank you for the sentiment, but we’re both still going to the same place, pursued by the same people, so it only makes sense for us to travel together, doesn’t it?” He quirked a tired smile. This was it, the point when his actions went from self-preserving to _stupid_. “And I have the sinking feeling you would just get yourself killed without my help.”

Benny leaned in, his head almost resting on Arcade’s shoulder. He grinned.

“I’d say you wound me, baby, but that seems insensitive.” 

From this close, Arcade could see flecks of green in the brown of his eyes. They glinted in the sunlight, like plants growing through the cracks of a rock-

Arcade tore his gaze away with great difficulty. What the hell was he thinking about? 

Benny moved back, twisting his shoulders to either side in an effort to stretch. He didn’t get very far, wincing quickly at what was likely a pain in his abdomen where the sting was still healing. 

“Let’s go, then. Novac ain’t gonna come to us.” 

“Let’s.”

#

They walked. It was immediately clear that Benny was nowhere near well, each step seeming laboured. At least they’d returned to the highway, where the even (ish) ground did wonders for their pace. 

The first thing they saw, not even an hour in, was the giant dinosaur statue looming over the horizon. The largest building for miles, probably all the way to Vegas- or, no, there was that military-looking building they’d passed days prior.

“That thing gives me the creeps. It ain’t even garish enough to be interesting, just… leering at us.” Benny remarked.

“Mm.”

He hadn’t been to Novac in quite some time. In recent memory, only once, with the Courier. They were just passing through on her way to some abandoned movie theater, something like that. She’d dismissed him before they got there, telling him to go back to the Followers until she needed him again. Altogether he’d only spent about a day in the town.

He’d been pretty rightfully peeved by that. Looking back, it was clearer and clearer with every memory that she’d never really cared for him. Lucky, then, that he’d never revealed to her his past. He’d thought about it, once or twice, but he’d surely done so millions of times before. Imagining what she would have done with the knowledge, now that he knew of her allegiances… well, she certainly wouldn’t have turned him in to the NCR, but other than that it couldn’t have been anything good.

The giant dinosaur heralded their destination’s nearing. Arcade slowed, remembering Boone’s grunted description of his past before he’d met the Courier. A sniper in the dinosaur’s mouth at all times, he’d said. 

Arcade relayed this to Benny.

“Yeah, I know. One of them was a Khan, turns out. Funny how small the world is.”

“That was probably the one that _wasn’t_ Boone, so… I assume that should be him up there.” He nodded at the structure. He’d first met the man when the Courier returned from whatever business she’d had that Arcade couldn’t be a part of. Getting conversation from him was like getting blood from a stone, and just as ridiculous. There was no way someone that grizzled was a decade younger than Arcade.

“We’d better walk slow. Hey, let me lean on you. Show them we ain’t a threat.” 

Benny moved to his uninjured side, leaning on his arm like a particularly sweaty sack of bricks. 

“Oh, get off. I’m not going to carry you in.”

“No? It’d be a spectacle and a half, you charging in there with me in your arms, yelling something about how you need medical aid. My hero.” 

Arcade chuckled. Benny stayed leaning on him.

But even as they approached, there was not even a sign of acknowledgement from the towering structure.

Arcade found himself treading carefully, lest he end up with a faceful of bullet. Benny, too, had cottoned on to his trepidation and was looking around with impunity.

Was he imagining it, or was it far too quiet? 

With every step, the feeling grew. They could both see the fence around Novac, now, but other than it it seemed there was no guard. No protection whatsoever.

And then he realized he could hear the soft lowing of brahmin and the rhythmic bang-bang-bang of hammer hitting metal. He sagged in the absence of terror.

But why had they- this by all accounts completely functional settlement- left their entrances unguarded?

“Who’s there?! Don’t come closer, commie scum, or I’ll stick you!”

“Huh?”

“With my stickin’ knife!”

They turned to see a man, dressed in rags with equally unkempt hair, pointing at them with a clear lack of knife. 

“Hi, sorry, I’m a friend of Daisy? Daisy Whitman? is it okay if we just… come in? Very sorry to bother you?”

The man squinted. 

“You ain’t ghouls either, then? Good, good. Been some problems with ghouls recently.”

“Have there?” Benny asked. “Then how does the town keep protected?”

“Well, it ain’t ghouls right now. No, they’re all gone, to the moon, I’d say, on account what of them being religious ghouls and all. Out there, looking for a land to call their own.”

A brief flicker of familiarity rose in Arcade’s mind.

“You haven’t by any chance had an interview with Radio New Vegas recently, have you?”

“I have! They don’t listen to me, not old No-Bark Noonan, but they all know I’m right about it all.”

“Oh. Well. Good for you?” Through the conversation, they’d been slowly sidling towards the fence, and had passed into the confines of the settlement. No-Bark, which was… probably his name? Seemed not to have noticed.

“You over there, with the coat. The aliens ain’t gotten you yet? I done told you ‘bout the checkers already.”

Benny grimaced and nodded.

Arcade, now reasonably certain of their safety, left him to it- a less charitable person could say he’d thrown him to the wolves- and walked off to find Daisy. Having a friend in the settlement always, as he had found out, helped thaw out the locals even just a little.

The town of Novac seemed normal. No different than last time he was there. They subsisted mainly on salvage, which was not particularly uncommon for settlements in the Mojave, owing to the lack of fertile land. As long as they were a safe and viable trade route, the town would survive.

“Is that Arcade? Arcade!”

He turned to see Daisy waving at him enthusiastically from the motel porch. A smile broke out on his face as he jogged to her. 

“Sorry I haven’t visited for so long.” He grinned. Footsteps came from behind him, and he saw Benny making his way towards the pair.

“It’s been so long, how _are_ you?”

She brought him into a strong hug and he relaxed, careful not to jostle his still-healing left arm.

“I’ve been… It’s been complicated, Daisy. But I am glad to see you.”

“You’d better be,” she laughed, then nodded at Benny. “And who’s this? Won’t you introduce us?”

“Oh! Right. Sorry. This is…” Benny wiggled his eyebrows in a way that probably meant something very specific, but Arcade found entirely impenetrable. “Benny.” That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, as he grimaced and looked at him with gritted teeth. “We’ve been travelling together for a while, but we ran into some Cazadors earlier, and some other hazards as well that, when added together, incited us to look to the nearest settlement.”

“Cazadors! That’s no good. And now that I think about it, let me have a look at you.” 

She stepped back and gave him a once-over.

“Just as I thought. You look like hell warmed over, Arcade dear, what have you been doing to yourself?”

“The best I can.” He said with an awkward smile. “That’s just about all I’ve been able to do the last week or so. We haven’t been having the best of times.”

She motioned for Benny to come over. 

“And you? You’ve been taking good care of Arcade here?”

“ _Daisy,_ I’m a grown man-”

“As much as he let me, ma’am. Can’t expect much more than that from him.” Benny grinned disarmingly.

“Oh, you’re a suave one. Where _did_ you pick him up?”

“Actually, about that, it’s a whole big thing and I’d rather tell you privately, but first, do you know if there’s a doctor here? I know last time you said someone had come recently but you hadn’t met her yet…?”

“Oh. _Her._ ” Daisy said with a facial expression that could bring down a vertibird. “She’s not even close to being a certified doctor! Truth be told, I don’t even think she has any medical training.” She paused, as if a very good idea had just occurred to her. “Say, Arcade, you should go over there and tell her what you think of her methodology. Teach her a thing or two so she stops talking about tomato baths.”

“What do you mean, she doesn’t have any medical training? How has she escaped being run out of town so far?”

“Well, she hasn’t killed anyone who could’ve been saved yet. But she hasn’t _helped anyone_ either, and those bodyguards of hers look scary enough to ward off whoever gets any ideas, I’d say. She’s out there on the west side of town, just lurking around the fence.”

Whatever showed on his face must have been uncommon enough to make Benny laugh.

“Look at you, all righteous anger. Gonna set that broad straight?”

“I don’t- I don’t know. The Followers of the Apocalypse, as a rule, have a commitment to teaching proper medical technique wherever necessary, especially in isolated settlements like this. I can’t really in good conscience tell her to stop practicing medicine- for some given value of medicine- without anyone even vaguely qualified nearby to step up to the demand. Yes, that includes her.” He sighed. “So yes, I guess I have to go teach her the basic principles of medicine.”

Benny patted him on the back with a decidedly unsympathetic tone.

“Well, that all sounds like fun, but I’m gonna duck out. That hobo outside might’ve tipped me off to a business venture I been following along with since before all this.”

“Business? Now?”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying! Sometimes, you gotta hedge your bets. If this whole _takin’ over Vegas_ plan don’t pan out, at least I got a new singer for the Tops.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“But you ain’t given up on me yet.”

“Give it a few more days. Well, as fun as this is, I do actually need to… ugh. Talk to that woman. We can meet up later?”

“Sure, sure. Don’t let me detain you, doc.”

Daisy nodded to him with a smile that indicated that she’d be grilling Benny for information until he got back. He didn’t pity the man particularly much, he knew that the head of the Chairmen should be able to survive a little needling- even if it was coming from an ex- Enclave soldier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohohoho some good stuff in this chapter and the next... >;3 as always thanks for reading! title is from twin skeletons (hotel in nyc) by fall out boy


	8. 8. suddenly a genius, i'm suddenly a fool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a night in novac.

God, he really didn’t want to do this. He had, in the past, been given the task of educating the general public about baseline medical facts…

Once.

The resulting event was titled  _ the syringe incident _ , and it had started a very small gang war, made three junior medics cry, and resulted in a brief but statistically significant drop in the birth rate exactly nine months later.

And Julie Farkas had never let him live it down.

Long story short, he was not a man accustomed to public outreach and science education. He wasn’t  _ rude  _ about it, or even particularly condescending (at least probably not). He just wasn’t a people person if the amount of people was two or more.

The apparently infamous doctor of Novac, Ada Strauss, was found around the west edge of the town’s perimeter with her two bodyguards, just as had been described. She loitered by the fence, chewing on a mutfruit and covered in dried blood. Her clothes, at least.

“Uh, hello. Are you Ada Strauss?”

“Yeah?” She blinked up at him.

“I’m Arcade Gannon, I’m from the Followers of the Apocalypse.” Now, how to segue into his main point from here? Should he just… “You’re the doctor here in Novac, right? I’ve been… ah… Some people around here have expressed concern about your practices, so I thought I’d check in.”

“What? Like who?”

“I can’t exactly  _ say.”  _ He rebuffed. “The point  _ being _ that I’m not entirely convinced that you have any medical training.”

She puffed up, trying to look intimidating in front of him. Failing, because she was more than a head shorter.

“Is that any of your business? I don’t think so!”

“It  _ is _ my business, actually, if only for the fact that as a member of the Followers of the Apocalypse, I have a vested interest in regulating the practice of medicine. Furthermore, consider this:  _ I don’t want anyone to die from improper medical care. _ ”

He must have delivered that final sentence with more venom than he thought, because Straus backed down.

“Look,  _ okay, _ fine, then teach me! If  _ you’re _ so good at it. Ranger Andy’s got some medical book thingy we can use.”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

And that was that.

#

Once he had a proper medical resource in front of him and some peace and quiet to teach, the concepts flowed together with ease. He began with basic first aid, which she seemed to grasp pretty easily. There was obviously a reason why she hadn’t been entirely run out of town before then. The part on radiation poisoning, at least, was difficult to teach, and he had  _ just _ barely kept himself from bashing his head against the nearest hard surface so he wouldn’t have to hear the words  _ it makes you see in the dark better _ or  _ tomato bath _ ever, ever, ever again. She also proved to have surprisingly accurate knowledge of basic medical procedures like setting bones and administering intravenous chems like Med-X, Radaway, and Fixer.

Which brought him to his next point…

“ _ Why _ do you have Jet in your medical supplies?”

“I don’t?”

He raised the offending chem to eye level and wiggled it.

“Oh, haha, hm, would you look at that. No idea.”

He stood up suddenly.

“You’re a chem dealer.”

It made sense. Of course it did.

She stood up too, but only to try and shove a hand over his mouth.

“Not so loud!”

“You’re a  _ chem dealer!” _

“Well, I’ve got to make a living somehow!”

“There’s a difference between, between doing odd jobs on the side, something, anything, and literally  _ selling chems! _ ” His voice rose. “You stepped up to the position of this town’s doctor, so you have a  _ responsibility _ to them!”

“Jesus, get off your high horse. It’s not like I have the money for much! You’ve seen what medical supplies I can get out here. It just makes sense to, y’know, supplement my income! For the greater good.”

“It’s not a greater good if you’re still contributing to the very problems that-”

“Oh, what? I can’t hear you from so high up! Get it, because I said you were on a high horse and also you’re, like, really tall.” 

He let out a wordless cry of frustration.

“Is this it, then!? Are you going to listen to me? At any point? Tell me now, because I don’t have the energy to argue you into doing good things if you’re never going to do it. If you’ll just keep selling chems to the same people you purport to help, I don’t see any way to stop it. So just tell me.”

She stared, obviously uncomfortable. Arcade felt regret bubbling up in the pit of his stomach. What sort of monologue was that? 

“I… I’ve got to sell what I’ve got first. Thanks for the lesson.” She said.

It wasn’t a  _ yes. _ But it wasn’t a  _ no _ either.

That was all he could hope for, wasn’t it? In this desolate world, even though he didn’t want to believe it, people looked after themselves first and foremost. 

“Right.” He said. “I’ll go, then.”

#

When he finally calmed down enough to go find Benny, he was in the lobby of the motel, leaning over the counter to talk to the woman behind it. Probably the owner.

"Took you long enough. Don’t suppose you have any caps in your pockets? Say, forty? Even better, how about more than that?”

He looked from the proprietess to Benny with a sinking feeling.

“What’s wrong now?”

Benny turned, wiggling his hands theatrically with a forced smile.

“We got  _ just _ enough money for one room! With one bed.”

Arcade blinked.

"Are you kidding me? Not even if we-”

“There’s still not enough money after we sell all the useless shit we have, doc. Believe me, I checked. Managed to argue the guy in the dinosaur up from eighty caps to a hundred sixty.”

"I suppose that’s better than no bed.” He sighed.

"It’s only marginally better than no bed.”

“Might I remind you you’re the one that couldn’t argue the traders up to two hundred caps?”

“I’d like to see you get fifty for the same junk.”

Arcade sighed yet again.

“It’s not even enough that I just spent three hours trying to teach a chem dealer responsible medical stewardship. No, my life just has to keep getting worse.”

The woman behind the motel’s desk looked between the two of them nervously, sweat remaining incapable of lowering the frizzy ends of her hair. 

“Well, I’m quite sorry, but-”

“No, it’s fine. We’ll take a room.” 

“Wonderful.” She smiled with an expression one could more easily find on some decompressed deep-sea creature. “It’s just this way, on the bottom level, dears.”

Almost dead on his feet with lethargy, Arcade didn’t think more of it until the two of them were standing in the small motel room. Standing and staring at the single bed in the centre.

  
  
  


“You can sleep on the bed.” Benny said promptly. 

“What? No. You’re still recovering from the Cazador sting, you can sleep on the bed.”

“Sleep on the bed, and then you can bail me out the next time something like that happens.”

“I’d rather it didn’t. You sleep on the bed.”

“You’re killing me. You’re killing your patient.”

“You aren’t my patient. You’re just… the person I’m travelling with.”

“Oh, you do the whole nurse routine for just about anyone, then?”

“What nurse routine?!”

Benny grinned.

“Nothing, nothing. But you get the bed.”

“For the last time, I’m  _ fine. _ And I don’t particularly want to get bedbugs.”

“I’m sure it ain’t that bad. Look, if you’re so against my poor backside getting any more flattened, why don’t we share it?”

“What?”

“Share the bed. We can sleep head-to-toe like kids or something.”

Arcade just stared, unsure how to respond. At this point, the normal thing to do would be to say ‘yes, that seems reasonable, let’s do that.’ Another normal thing to do would be to say ‘no, I’m not comfortable with that, one of us is going to have the bed to themselves.’

What he said was.

“Uhuh. Yes, okay, wait no it’s fine we can sleep normally. Not, feet?”

Benny didn’t seem to find that complete loss of coherence notable, instead unstrapping the various scavenged pieces of armour from himself with a sigh. Underneath it all, the remainder of the legionnaire armour they’d pilfered when they’d escaped. The checkered coat was long gone, probably rotting in some Legion waste pit.

Arcade began to undress too. His coat hadn’t fared well in the week prior, with strips being torn off to use as both medical supplies and makeshift bags. Beneath it his shirt was stained with blood, dirt, and an array of miscellaneous stains. Benny made some kind of sound behind him.

“Doc. Arcade. Are you wearing  _ suspenders? _ ”

He turned.

“I thought you’d seen them before. It isn’t like I’ve been intentionally hiding my clothes.”

Benny guffawed.

“ _ Suspenders?! _ This is the best day of my life.”

“Like you’re one to talk. How many centuries old was your coat again?”

Benny just laughed quieter. Arcade fumed in that half-joking way. It wasn’t like he had a belt! And  _ how _ had this realization come a full week after they’d first met?

They got into the bed, careful not to touch each other across the half-inch abyss of a regular twin bed with two people in it. The blankets smelled surprisingly clean, though still with a tinge of that musty dirt smell that permeated every building and piece of fabric in the Mojave desert. Arcade curled up, his back to Benny’s, attempting to fit both his shoulders and his feet under the blanket at the same time.

“Your feet are cold.” He said.

“Shove it.”

The last rays of sunlight had long since passed the narrow window of the room. Particles of dust played in the air, illuminated for just a moment before fading back into grey. 

Arcade stared at the ceiling, the reality of the situation crashing in on him all in one fell swoop. 

He was sleeping in the same bed as Benny.

No, wait, zoom out a little bit more. He was sleeping in the same bed as the leader of the Chairmen, the man who was apparently in a constant state of  _ vying for the metaphorical throne. _ And Arcade was lying in bed with him like their worlds intersected in any way, shape or form.

Though that was an oversimplification. It was an accord between the two of them, too fragile for words, remaining so until either of them actually made any attempt at their own agendas.

Okay, now he was just being melodramatic. Get it together, Arcade, you aren’t even close to the level of initiative needed to claim you have an agenda. All he had was an  _ idea, _ if that, and he knew in the pit of his stomach that he’d never have the actual strength needed to make it come to fruition. Too fast to return to the status quo, the first to break and give up, and far too scared to show his hand. A single pillar of fruitless, barren opinions in a world that ebbed and flowed regardless.

In that regard, Benny was the opposite of him. At least it seemed that way, looking at what he’d done. Always moving forward, pushing through it at the expense of everything around him until his very flesh was stripped from bone by the winds of change.

He was also snoring. 

Arcade closed his eyes and tried to get comfortable.

  
  
  


#

  
  


Arcade awoke slowly, gently. The weight in the pit of his stomach that normally heralded the beginning of a normal anxiety-filled day was lighter than normal, not an oppressive sense of dread but a weak nagging feeling.

He didn’t recognize his surroundings for a moment, the feeling of warmth and soft fabric beneath him almost entirely alien after a lifetime of various cots and bunks. 

Then he felt the arm around his shoulders and realized.

He was sharing a bed with Benny.

_ Benny was spooning him. _

His momentarily freaked out brain sought desperately to mask the emotions of the situation through pretentious literary analysis. It was like Ishmael and Queequeg, in that way that everyone seemed to end up after sharing a bed for the night. No matter how platonic, there was something so seemingly inherently human in the tendency to wrap around each other like invasive vines.

All of this poetry, however, didn’t detract from the reality that Arcade was currently the little spoon and if he didn’t get out right now he was absolutely going to die from an emotion he decided to just go ahead and categorize as embarrassment because that was what it was, right? Right?

Right.

He lifted his arm up carefully, inch by inch before Benny shifted and moved his own down to Arcade’s hip.

At this point, would it have been better to just get up? Do it quickly, like ripping off a bandage that had been matted with congealed blood, stand up so suddenly that in the tangle of limbs there remains no trace of the position in which he’d found himself?

Maybe.

But that’s not what he did.

For reasons he told himself he didn’t understand, he carefully placed his arm back down and closed his eyes yet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:D  
> we're at the midway point... if you enjoyed this chapter, comment and tell me what you thought! or felt! or anything!  
> title is from 'isn't it love' from steven universe!


	9. 9. you say 'that's exactly how this grace thing works'

The next time he awoke, Benny was getting dressed behind him. Arcade made a show of getting up, facing the door so Benny would have time to get decent before he turned around. 

_ Oh _ boy that wasn’t a helpful mental image to hold on to after the events of that morning. Think about Herman Melville, Arcade. Think of the extremely specific diatribes on whaling practices of the mid- nineteenth century. No reason to be weird about it.

He got dressed, making a small detour to check on the state of his arm. Despite one or two torn sutures, it seemed to be healing well- though it didn’t look too good. Heavy bruising from unrelated incidents to the original incision, but there was no dirt in it or signs of infection. He’d count that as a win.

“I’m gonna go out for a bit. Buy some supplies with whatever caps we’ve got left. Doc, you want anything?”

“I would say medical supplies, normally, but my experience yesterday has just about proved that there aren’t any available.”

“Gotcha. Well, I’ll catch you sometime later.”

And he was gone, leaving Arcade in the motel room.

What the hell had just happened?

He’d been  _ spooning. _ With  _ Benny. _ And he hadn’t even- he’d gone back to sleep after noticing, for god’s sake! Wh- what did that say about him? What did it say about his relationship- oh god, wrong word, what did it say about his friendship, alliance, truce with Benny? He couldn’t afford to ruin something like that again. Not like he had so many times in his life, with his inability to read the room and… Okay. Take some time, calm down, then find Benny.

It was then that he noticed a persistent drumming sound emanating from the outside. Window or door, he wasn’t sure, and it was strange enough that he quickly pulled his shoes on and walked to the door to listen. Was it… raining?

He pulled the door open, then, to be hit with a wave of humid, warm air. 

It really was raining. Arcade gaped up at the grey sky, as the smell of ozone grew ever more prominent.

He stepped outside carefully, admiring the way each drop of rain darkened the packed earth. Already soaked, but the desert ground always wanted more than it got.

Oh, he was turning into Benny, with his desert anthropomorphization.

“Seems it’s been raining since last night.” Daisy said, coming up from behind him. “Sleep well?”

“Oh! Yes, I didn’t even hear the rain.” He paused. “Have you seen Benny?”

She shrugged.

“The general store, most likely. Say, while we’re on that topic, would you like to come in for a moment? There’s something I think you’ll need.”

He followed her into her apartment obediently.

She shut the door behind them and turned to face Arcade, like something had just come to mind. 

"Arcade, dear…do you like him?"

He blinked.

“What?”

“That Benny of yours. Are you two…”

No! He thought, as a sort of knee-jerk response. He's untrustworthy! I would never- Why would she even think that? Do I look that desperate?

Daisy waved a hand in front of his face.

Well, okay, he wasn't all that bad. Not to talk to, not really to look at- FROM AN ENTIRELY OBJECTIVE STANDPOINT. And then there was that morning, and  _ whatever kind of moment they’d shared  _ two nights ago, and Benny was acting weirdly nice and he couldn’t stop thinking about his eyes-

Oh god. He  _ did _ like him.

Daisy must have seen the conclusion on his face, because she leaned back in what seemed to be honest shock.

“Well. That’s something, it is.”

“I’m- I don’t- he isn’t-”

“Right, right. You be careful, won’t you? He doesn’t look like… Oh, I almost forgot why we came in here...” She moved away to begin rifling through a box of some sort. “I know it’s in here somewhere... there!”

It was a battered, rusted, generally beat-up energy pistol.

“For me? Shouldn’t you be selling this?”

“Hah. Walking around the wastelands like this, you’ll need it more than anyone passing through here. Just say it’s a present, dear.”

“Daisy, I am  _ not  _ going to be able to say I just got it as a present! This is too much. I can survive until we get back to Vegas, an option that notably doesn’t involve Benny noting that I seem to be able to procure energy weapons from  _ old ladies _ in the middle of  _ nowhere! _ ”

Daisy looked at him for a long moment, seeming to scrutinize each slight shift of his eyes.

“Oh, Arcade.” She finally sighed, dragging her hand down her face in a terribly weary motion. “You always were the most careful.”

Nothing more was to be said.

He left quietly, the conversation weighing heavily on his mind as much as the energy pistol  _ didn’t _ weigh on his coat. He couldn’t afford a giant slip-up like that. Not even if it would have meant that he had a weapon he actually knew how to  _ use, _ something to protect him as much as Benny- But no. That wasn’t helpful. 

He decided against going to find Benny for the time being. He’d have time enough to talk to him later, and it wasn’t like the endless days spent with only each other for company were something he’d like to emulate for no reason. Already it was refreshing just to  _ talk _ to other people. Imagine that.

He sat on a rock and groaned.

What was he even doing?

He  _ ‘liked’ _ Benny? To whom, exactly, was that realization useful? He’d never be able to admit something like that, even if Benny reciprocated, which he  _ obviously _ didn’t, a farce of a relationship like that would never go anywhere. It would be better to just ignore the idea altogether, pretend he’d never come to that conclusion, but he’d already told someone, so what could he do?

Ignore it. Obviously.

#

In the end, their exit from Novac was nothing notable. Benny found him quickly enough, and they packed up and made their way towards the road leading out.

Daisy patted Arcade on the back with enough force to bruise, smiling conspiratorially and wiggling her eyebrows. Arcade shook her off, face burning.

Benny attempted, and failed, to set a fast pace. Panting and wincing, he returned to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with Arcade, a defeated expression on his face.

“Say, in light of how beat up I am…”

“Mhm?”

“And the general fact that you’ve got a soft heart and you pity me…”

“Are you going anywhere with this?”

“I’m  _ going _ towards the question, are you gonna tell me what was up with you and that old broad in Novac? She ain’t your mother, but from the way you were talking, she ain’t far off either.”

Arcade fought to keep himself from freezing. 

“It’s really nothing as important as you’re thinking. She was a friend of my father’s.” He felt the hesitation in his voice, traitorous anxiety as he spoke. Mercifully, Benny nodded and turned back to the road. But something possessed Arcade to keep going. “After he died, she and his friends helped my mother to raise me. In a way.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re bad at lying?”

“What? I’m- you think I’m lying?”

“Eh… not particularly. But you  _ think _ you’re lying, so you get all skittish about it. Like a teenager.”

Well, other than the general  _ oh shit i’ve been called out on a lie even though i didn’t lie _ sort of feeling, that was just uncalled for. 

“What are you even talking about? I’m just being brief about it because, as previously stated, my past isn’t really sordid enough to warrant a play-by-play reenactment.”

He paused.

“And I’m not bad at lying.” Not about his feelings, not about his past.

“Just keep telling yourself that, baby, and maybe it’ll become true.” 

They kept walking, the already soft sounds of the settlement fading away rapidly and being replaced with the unnerving near-silence of the desert. 

“Do you  _ always _ deflect personal questions?” Benny asked. Arcade chuckled.

“Oh, only to obfuscate my past association with a fascist paramilitary organization.”

“What?”

“What? I'm joking, of course.” He laughed uncomfortably, trying to edge away from Benny’s inquiring gaze. “...I will deflect personal questions at any opportunity.” God, the one time his brain saw fit to make a joke, it correlated with the one time his brain let up his Enclave-focused brain-to-mouth filter. 

“Huh.”

#

The next diversion on their path, as they made their way into the mountains, was what seemed to be a NCR camp in the distance. He remembered it vaguely from his travels with the Courier- Ranger Station  _ something _ , he didn’t know what. 

Between the brief respite of flat land and the rails curving around it, it carved out its position with rusted trailers. Arcade watched the light glint off what remained of sheer metal on their surfaces, idly wondering-

“ _ Get down!” _

Benny stopped abruptly in front of him and dove for the nearest large rock, dragging Arcade down by his coat. 

At this point, after everything they’d faced together, it would have been pointless to argue, even though Arcade’s arm protested the sudden movement as the two of them crouched behind the rock.

_ “Why?” _ Arcade hissed. Benny just nodded at the encampment before them.

The NCR encampment that had just opened its jaws and spat out, like a discharge of bile or blood, four fully-armoured and armed Legionnaires. They exited swiftly, the last taking a moment to clean his machete on a scrap of fabric.

Blood remained in splotches where they placed their feet. Arcade stared in horror at the open door to the main building. How many dead?

They gathered themselves once more, conversing inaudibly. Arcade’s shins trembled with the effort of staying still. One legionnaire, a leader most likely, broke off from the group and waved for the others to follow him as he set his course south. They marched down the road and disappeared from sight.

Arcade shivered. A close call made even closer by their position now. If they left their hiding place now and were seen, they were practically sitting ducks.

So they waited. And waited. The dust settled, and the splotches of blood visible outside on the concrete dried in the sun.

Benny was the first to come out of their hiding place. His footfalls light, he motioned for Arcade to follow him. 

“Are you insane?!” Arcade hissed. “What are you doing?”

“Not following them, if that’s what you’re asking. Come on, they might have left someone alive.”

Well, he couldn’t refuse that.

They didn’t, as it turned out, but Arcade had expected as much. No, the bodies of the previous occupants lay lifeless and still in the main building, blood pooling around-

“Watch out for the frag grenades.” Benny called. Arcade froze, one foot in the air.

“The what?”

And so it came to pass that those same bodies had been rigged with fucking  _ grenades. _ Arcade released a deep breath and cleaned his glasses on the lapel of his coat reflexively. It wasn’t exactly his fault that he didn’t have the best eyesight. And as prescription glasses in the post-apocalypse were a bit of a scarcity, he had to do with a pair that wasn’t exactly made for him. Sure, he got a headache if he tried to read distant billboards, but at least he could  _ read. _ And shoot, mostly.

But that was beside the point. They were in the bloody wreckage of a NCR patrol station as the Legion began their inexorable march northwest.

“Well, this was a bust. Come on, doc, we might be able to find some other way across before the sun sets.” The fact that they couldn’t go south hung unspoken and certain between the two of them. If Legion patrols could massacre a NCR base in broad daylight like this, they were no safer going south than going back the way they came to Hoover Dam and the Fort.

“Couldn’t we go across the mountains?”

“It’d be slower overall.” Benny said, making himself comfortable on one of the rusted husks of cars. “But going back the way we came would be worse.”

“Which means what, exactly? We can’t go the direction of  _ miscellaneous whining _ . Either we go across or we go back.”

“I  _ know _ . We’re going across, then, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. It ain’t for the faint-hearted, and I don’t even know where we’ll come out. I got no idea why you’re still with me, doc, really.”

Arcade rolled his eyes.

“Is that one of the two things you can say about me, to repeat ad nauseam? The other one being  _ i hate your political stance _ ?”

“Hey, I got a full catalogue of witty remarks! Don’t disparage me like that, baby, my heart can’t take it.”

If he rolled his eyes any more, they would all but pop out of his head, so Arcade settled for showing his disdain by punching Benny lightly in the shoulder. The melancholy and on-edge mood was chased away for a moment, but Arcade couldn’t help but return his thoughts to the massacre he’d seen in there. The Legion’s brutality and the NCR’s seeming helplessness in these border territories loomed large. 

#

In comparison, the rest of the day was positively  _ rosy _ . Though subdued from their discovery, as they climbed and wound their way around peaks, valleys and rock formations, it was far easier to feel as if they were making progress.

For the most part.

No matter how carefully Arcade placed his feet upon the sandy slope, the world always seemed ready to find that- would you look at that- a shrub or patch of grass had dried out or died enough to allow it to tear away from the dune and make him slide down another few feet. It had rained just that morning, for god’s sake! 

Benny, on the other hand, somehow managed to find secure footholds as easily as breathing. He scaled the sands with insulting ease. 

Arcade's sun-addled mind put forward a comparison: Tolkien's elves and their ability to walk, feather-light, on snow. 

It was a laughable comparison, but when Benny turned and reached his hand out, sweaty and dirty and haloed in gold in the afternoon light, Arcade was struck speechless. 

Of all people, it had to have been Benny, didn’t it? Couldn’t he have fallen in love with some Californian farmhand and settled in for a life of rustic bliss? Wait, no, love was the wrong word. Infatuation, maybe. Or some form of Stockholm syndrome. He wasn’t in love. 

Oh god. 

The day continued in that vein. Arcade, wrestling with the treachery of his thought patterns, and Benny, seeming more like he was in his element with every hour that passed. 

Who did Arcade think he was fooling? He couldn’t do this. Benny was just using him, or not even that, except no, that wasn’t right, Arcade had become far more familiar with the man’s thought processes as the days went by and this didn’t make any sense! 

He almost wished none of this had happened. 

Yeah, perhaps it was cowardly. For one, in the situation he was in now he actually had the opportunity to enact some genuine, significant change on the political landscape! He could make things better for everyone in and around Vegas... 

Or doom them in the process. 

And with that thought he returned to square one. 

As they walked, the cascading sand gave way to bare sandstone. A small difference but one that made their traversal far easier. By the afternoon, they had seemingly passed the highest point of their route. It was all downhill from there, though it didn’t actually get any easier. No, now they had moments where they had to sit down and attempt to control their sliding as they descended down pathways too steep for walking down. They had to hug rock faces and feel around beneath their feet for any small indents that could allow them to drop another half a foot down. Repeat ad nauseam, each time with that horrible lurch as Arcade’s inner ear got the idea that he was plummeting to his death.

Night fell, and they still hadn’t reached flat land. It was as if the very idea had disappeared, leaving only the endless mountain range.

“Let’s turn in for the night, hey? I see a cave over there.” Benny called out over his shoulder and pointed. 

“Fine.” Arcade didn’t have the energy to say anything more. Or there just wasn’t anything to say. Either way, the cave Benny had noted seemed a safe, flat enough place to stay the night. It would be cold, sure, but better cold than spread, gel-like, across the rocks far below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was a DOOZY. hope yall liked it! comment if you did, or even if you didnt  
> title from roll away your stone by mumford & sons


	10. 10. quod per sortem sternit fortem, mecum omnes plangite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for a gory dream sequence in the beginning

The entrance to the cave was low, not enough for them to get stuck but low enough that Benny had to bend down. Arcade doing the same was, of course, taken for granted. Even if a door was high enough for him, he still always bent down.

He looked around the cave proper. It was larger than he’d expected, larger than Benny had expected too, if his expression was anything to go by. A single passage led out into the darkness, though Arcade could faintly see it split into two beyond that point.

“I don’t like this.”

“You’re preachin’ to the choir, doc. Anything could be in here.” Despite this, Benny moved to the left and motioned for Arcade to follow. “But I bought a lighter in Novac.”

The small flame barely illuminated anything, at least until Benny put it to the first stick he grabbed off the ground.

“Hm. Very… neanderthal.”

“I’ll just pretend I know what that means.”

The path they’d taken ended abruptly in a dead end. Just some sticks and rocks on the ground. Arcade sat down-

And heard a  _ crunch _ .

He quickly turned to see what he’d broken. Nothing that wasn’t broken before, it seemed- under him were shards of eggshell.

#

“I’ll take first watch.” Benny offered.

Arcade nodded to him gratefully, kicking away debris from their chosen patch of ground. Oh, for a bedroll. The memory of the previous night’s crumbling but soft mattress weighed heavy on his back as he tried to get comfortable.

Sleep came soon enough.

In it, though, rest was not to be found.

#

The Courier grinned at him, her teeth bloody.

Vulpes Inculta gripped his arm, reaching into his head and pulling out every word he’d ever said, thought, read, and Caesar ate it all until there was nothing left. His brain swelled up, then, from all the words, and Arcade took his scalpel out again and did what he had to do, cutting out his own words in a cancerous lump.

The Courier grinned at him, her teeth bloody.

Navarro.

Metal squealed and shifted, melted into dead bodies and the guns pointed at them. Whirring from overhead, laser fire from behind. This wasn’t anything he’d ever seen.

The Courier grinned at him, her teeth bloody.

Hands burst up from the dirt, reaching and grabbing and shaking his shoulders and yelling-

_ “Wake up!” _

He gasped awake. Benny was standing over him, not wasting time or breath on explaining  _ anything _ , let alone something so inconsequential as  _ what was going on,  _ but pulling a still-disoriented Arcade to his feet and grabbing his gun.

Arcade kept one hand on his pack, luckily still in one piece as he followed Benny’s wild sprint down the cave. Moonlight filtered in from the entrance, more and more as they neared it, until they were at the fork. Arcade’s lungs burned and his head swam, but Benny didn’t seem to be any more composed. His armour pieces were half undone, flapping in the wind as they ran.

And as they turned to face the thing standing between them and the exit, Arcade realized the meaning of those shards he’d brushed away.

Deathclaw eggs.

#

As one, they turned and ran. Not towards the exit, towards the  _ fucking deathclaw oh god, _ but further into the cave. Benny stumbled, almost faceplanting in the gravel before Arcade pulled him up.

_ “Is it chasing us?!” _ He wheezed out. “Where did it-”

A growl behind them.

“Shut up and run!”

Darkness wrapped around them like oiled blankets, like tendrils of rot as they sped ever onwards. Time seemed to dilate. How had they not already been killed?

He couldn’t see where Benny was, or where the cave walls curved and split off. He could only run.

He collided with a hard, cold surface. His glasses cracked audibly as he stumbled, disoriented, to the side. Darkness reigned.

“Benny?!”

“I’m here, I-  _ fuck _ \- keep going, doc, I’m fine.” 

“No, _ where are you?” _

“In the dark! Like you! Just-”

A growl.

“Just  _ run! _ ”

He ran. He ran, hands in front of him as he stumbled into rock face after rock face, all the while straining his ears for footfalls or growling but finding it only growing fainter. If he could have turned around, he would have, but he didn’t know which way was  _ forwards, _ let alone  _ back.  _ So he ran, heart in his throat and terrified, pathetic guilt in his stomach.

#

All sense of distance was warped in the darkness. His glasses fell, barely a sound there to mark their passage as they disappeared into the unknown. 

He kept running, running until the black unravelled into pale grey. A strip of moonlight, running through a crack in the ceiling of the cave like the sword in the stone in cross-section.

  
  


Now, his footsteps slowed as he almost collided with the cave wall. He cast around for further passageways, but only saw dead ends. A pile of rubble to one side could have been another passage in times gone by, perhaps, but no longer. 

He stumbled over something on the ground, a deafening clatter smashing the silence. He looked down, eyes still adjusting to the sudden influx of light.

And he finally got a good look at the corpse in front of him, and the pieces of metal strewn around its half-bared, dessicated body.

Power armour.

_ Brotherhood _ power armour.

Like a lightning bolt striking, he knew what he had to do. It was a long shot, it would kill him if he was wrong, but he  _ couldn’t _ just stay here and die in any other way _.  _ He was loath to touch the corpse, but it was wearing an undersuit- he didn’t have  _ time  _ for that, not now- so it was forgone in favour of speed.

The pieces went on, one by one, and he already knew this wouldn’t end well. Casting his mind back to try and remember anything he could possibly know about Brotherhood armour, there was  _ nothing, _ but surely he could make this work.  _ Surely _ there was something-

Each piece slotted in place even as he fumbled. Chestplate, legs and spine in one piece, gauntlets and arms plugged into the shoulders. Finally, the helmet. His heart was in his throat.

What if Benny was already dead? What if he’d wasted his time here, trying to wring out one  _ fucking  _ good thing from his own history, his training in power armour, like breeding lilacs out of a dead land, only to find Benny broken and cold on the ground? What could he  _ possibly _ do, then?

The unfamiliar interface burst into staticky light before Arcade’s eyes. He could have wept. But instead, he simply turned and ran, towards the sounds of growling and footsteps echoing through every passageway. Each step felt agonizingly slow, though he knew that he was moving faster than a regular human could run. Yet not fast enough. Nothing could have been fast enough, not this old armour strewn around a dessicated carcass when Benny was  _ dying. _

His glasses long gone, the displays and words on the lenses of the helmet only added to his pounding headache and disorientation. Heat built up with each creaking step.

The cave split into two, one path running perpendicular to the way he had come. That had to be where Benny was.

He ran.

There was a high squealing, like something scraping on stone. Finally a voice filtered out through the bends and switchbacks of the cave. 

Benny screamed something, a wordless expression of rage. As he came into view, Arcade reacted on pure instinct and grabbed him.

He reared back, surely mistaking the contact for the Deathclaw, but Arcade hoped he would realise what was going on as he turned and threw Benny back the way he came. He’d get him, he just needed to-

It turned to him.

  
  


He punched it.

Even with the metal plating and wiring in the way, it  _ hurt. _ Like punching a brick wall, if a brick wall was predisposed to turning around and attempting to tear your head off with its teeth.  _ Ohgod _ there were so many teeth.

The monstrosity’s swipe didn’t tear as much as throw him shoulder-first into the cave wall. Something crumbled over him, and he could just hope they weren’t about to cause a cave-in.

“Who the hell-” Benny shouted, but quickly dropped that line of questioning in favour of reloading his gun and shooting the deathclaw again. 

“It’s me!” Arcade yelled, not even knowing if his voice even reached the outside of the armour. His shoulder ached and more and more lights on his display were coming up red.

He feinted to the side, the deathclaw matching his movements. Once more, and he was within arm’s reach of Benny.

And with a clear line of sight to the exit.

He braced himself, then pulled Benny off his feet and into something between a fireman’s and bridal carry. Benny yelped in surprise and affront, but quickly gathered what the plan was as Arcade dodged around the deathclaw and sprinted full-tilt at the exit.

Benny held on for dear life. With his weight added, each step jarred at Arcade’s injuries. The armour was in bad shape already, and certainly wasn’t intended for this sort of use. But that paled in comparison to the necessity of it.

They burst out into light, the display before his eyes shorting out for a moment as long-disused circuits were put to work turning night vision off. He stumbled. 

“Heyheyhey be _ careful _ !” Benny half-screeched.

Arcade couldn’t reply as much as right himself and cast around for some hope of escape. He didn’t know if he could outrun the deathclaw, or even if he could, for how long. He knew, sort of abstractly, that his armour was heating up. Around him, rocks and scrub and peaks and valleys in the same breath. 

And another cave, a large opening far too high up for anyone to reach in a sheer cliff face.

“Hold on.” He said. With the last of his strength, he leaped, motors in his legs augmenting the movement as much as the weight stymied it. From their position to a large boulder, then to another outcropping, then a final mad leap into the entrance of the cave.

Benny rolled out of his grasp, gasping for air. 

Arcade stood by the side of the cave, looking from the entrance to the wall, close and in full sight.

“What the hell was that?! No, wait, look, I ain’t complaining, but who the hell are- what- who?!” Benny scrambled up to a standing position, looking between the cave entrance and him. As the adrenaline left his system, the oppressive heat finally became apparent. He stumbled to the side, head lolling. With shaking hands, he pulled his helmet off.

“Doc? Arcade? Wh- since when can you use power armour?” Benny’s voice hadn’t yet lost the tinge of manic terror.

The heat was cloying. It felt like every single piece of the armour was burning a discrete, separate hole into his skin, his vision blurring further, where were his glasses? He’d lost them? What was going on?

“Gh- get i’ off me. H’t.”

“Arcade!”

Everything went black.

#

  
  


A hand, carding through his hair with such gentleness that Arcade couldn’t begin to imagine who it was.

“You idiot.” A voice muttered, fond and quiet. “Why the hell did you gotta do that, huh?” Oh.

_ Benny. _

“Sometimes I wonder if you’ve still got that death wish.” Benny continued softly. “Hope not. I told you already it’d be a shame to lose you.”

His hand retreated, and Arcade found himself missing it. Of course he did, he couldn’t maintain control of his own thoughts for even a  _ moment.  _ But his head was spinning and his vision was blurry and it was far easier to just sink back into unconsciousness.

The next time he awoke, he felt far lighter than before. What had changed? Just his level of consciousness? He could actually  _ see, _ too.

The thought brought with it a cascade of recollection. The deathclaw, his terrified sprint into the unknown, and he’d collapsed immediately afterward. But now it was already morning…?

“How long was I unconscious for?” He asked feebly. His throat was dry, his lips chapped.

“Not too long. I’d say two hours at most.”

“Two hours-” The attempt he made to push himself up failed painfully. His shoulder made a wet creaking noise and he crumpled with a gasp of pain. Benny reached out to steady him.

“Hey, calm down. You got us to a high enough ledge. We’re safe for now.”

“The deathclaw?”

He grimaced.

“That’s the bad news. It’s still down there.”

Arcade attempted to frown, or express his displeasure in any way, but that same moment a spike of pain made him groan. Like a white-hot lance across his brain, it tore at every synapse. If he’d had the energy to scream, he would have.

Benny must have seen it, because he quickly moved back into Arcade’s field of vision.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong? You gotta talk me through this, doc, what do you need?”

“Gh- just rest. I don’t- I overheated. Was I bleeding from the head, after…?”

“No, just the shoulder. Even though I thought I’d pull your legs off, with how stuck on that armour was.”

Arcade closed his eyes. The ramifications of his actions began to dawn.

“I think I need to… tell you some things. About myself.”

“Sure you do. I got about twice as many questions as I bet you got answers. But that can wait until you’re not dying. I bandaged you up best I could, but…”

“Alright.” He held out a hand. “Help me up? To a sitting position, at least.”

Benny did so, one hand in his and another hovering by his shoulder. Arcade smiled gratefully, too tired to think any more of it, as much as he wanted to.

“The deathclaw, then. You said it’s still  _ here? _ ”

“Down there.” Benny nodded at the exit of the cave, with its steep drop down. “So, not that I don’t appreciate what you’ve done, but we ain’t getting out of here any time soon.”

“Fuck.” His eyes fluttered closed for a moment, buoyed by his bone-deep fatigue. “Do we have any water left?”

“Here.” Benny held out a canteen his way, which he seized gratefully and drank from. Only a drop at a time, small gulps as to not overwhelm. 

"Y’know, we make a good team," Benny commented after a long moment of silence. Arcade twisted around- his shoulder protesting at the motion- to give him a  _ look _ . 

"We're going to be eaten by a deathclaw." 

"Don't be so pessimistic, baby. We're going to be  _ mauled  _ by a deathclaw," Benny chuckled, slumping further down the cave wall. 

Arcade found himself smiling too, if only reflexively. 

"Is this the part where you light a cigarette, look into the distance, and regurgitate some cliche movie line about me being not such a fink after all? Since you're committed to your whole gangster charade." 

"No, it's the part where I kick you for bein' a smartass." He kicked out feebly with his good leg. "The melodramatic part is in, hm, half an hour." 

They lapsed into silence, watching the deathclaw as it snuffled and growled beneath them. For Arcade, at least, it was a brownish-green blur against the rocks. It didn't actually seem to be able to see them, which was promising, but there was still no way they were getting out of there without it leaving first. 

Arcade knew what he needed to say. It was inescapable at this point, but even the thought of it stuck in his throat.

He trusted Benny. That was undeniable. But… god, what would he  _ say? _ Would it mean anything to him? Would it change everything or nothing? He already knew the outside of it, he’d seen Arcade in the armour. It was all he could do.

#

“About what I wanted to talk to you about.” Arcade said, maybe an hour later. Between the bone-deep tiredness he felt and the injury he’d sustained, it came out more as a mumble. Perking up, Benny stood up and moved to sit next to him.

“I’m all ears.”

Alright. This could easily become the worst decision of his life- no, scratch that, it was already the worst decision of his life- except he’d decided to go travel with the Courier, which was worse, and he was psyching himself out of it for no reason except there  _ was  _ a reason-

“My parents were soldiers of the Enclave. I was raised by them, and other Enclave personnel, in a military base named Navarro.  _ That’s  _ why I know how to use power armour, and also the reason I use energy weapons, and it’s also the reason I came to New Vegas- none of us were safe in the NCR, even in hiding.”

“Huh. See, I just thought you were on the run from the Brotherhood.”

“What?”

“You use energy weapons.” Benny began to list on his fingers. “You’re well-read in things most people from around here, where the  _ Legion _ is, would steer clear of. And don’t tell me you ain’t noticed how tall you are, baby. That means you were well-fed as a kid. I can go on.”

“How did you- there is absolutely no way I was that obvious. That’s not even enough evidence to make that conclusion! You mean to tell me I’ve been agonizing over this the whole time while you were here just- just-”

“No offense, baby, but I’d be harder pressed to find a part of you that  _ doesn’t _ scream ‘I just escaped from some military cult!’ than a part that  _ does. _ ”

“I’ve been living by myself for twenty years!”

“Okay, okay, then not _ just escaped. _ But you ain’t good at lying, like I said, and all those slips add up.”

“That’s bullshit, but okay. You just  _ knew?” _

“Well, I wouldn’t stake my life on it. I  _ guessed _ .” Benny looked to the side, almost broadcasting how uncomfortable he was. “I wasn’t in a position to  _ tell _ anyone, dig? Even if I’d had evidence. I wouldn’t get anything out of it, and, well… I know how it is.”

“Right. Because you were a tribal before-” 

“How did you know that?”

Arcade stared.

“You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

He laughed.

“You told me.  _ Days _ ago, under the influence of cazador venom. Suffice to say, I feel the same way about your own past as you do about mine.”

They both burst out laughing.

“Look at us,” Benny wheezed, “Swannin’ around, being  _ sooo  _ mysterious and tortured about our pasts! And you just-” He snorted. Arcade ran a hand over his face, the absolute ridiculousness of the night’s events lending levity. They were both alive. They’d both put themselves into the open like this, agonizingly, to- he had to restrain another cackle- mixed reviews. Audiences figured out the plot twist before it could happen.

As the laughter died down, Arcade looked back up to Benny.

He could feel his breath, light and warm on his own lips. It was hard to focus on almost anything else. 

Benny’s hand gripped his wrist as he leaned in.

“Do you-”

Arcade leaned in and kissed him.

His lips weren’t soft, but not anything else either. Just  _ present _ and  _ alive _ , tasting of cigarette smoke and blood.

It only lasted a moment before Benny pulled away.

They stared at each other for a long moment, neither seeming any less flabbergasted than the other. Still not breaking either eye contact or the silence Arcade stood up and moved to the opposite side of the cave, his face burning incandescent red.

Benny still hadn’t moved. Staring at him, one hand carefully reaching up to his lips as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened.

“I- sorry.” Arcade coughed out, covering his eyes in the guise of rubbing them. It didn’t help either way, his vision wouldn’t get any more blurry however much he did that.

“No, that’s…” Benny trailed off. His voice was rough and he couldn’t seem to meet Arcade’s eyes.

“I’m- I’m sorry. I’ll… I think I need to go to sleep.”

But it was barely past morning, and though he was tired and battered sleep didn’t come for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HM! SO! HOW ARE YALL HOLDING UP!  
> title from orff's o fortuna


	11. 11. can you at least give me a little bit of sympathy?

Of course, the deathclaw retreated, after a while. Seemingly tired of its planned meal being unreachable- or perhaps it had just found something else to eat. It didn’t matter. They waited to see if it would come back- minutes to half an hour to an hour to longer- and only then did they attempt to venture out of their rocky sanctuary.

The climb back down was one of the most miserable experiences of Arcade’s life. Definitely not the singular  _ most _ , that dubious honour went to  _ he could just let his scalpel slip and kill Caesar, but they were all looking at him, their weapons all at the ready, he couldn’t he couldn’t he couldn’t _ -

Moving on. His near-death experience was making him maudlin. 

Forget that, his  _ celestial relationship fuckup _ was making him maudlin.

Perhaps they were comorbid.

His back and shoulder protested at every loose rock that went tumbling down under his footfalls. Benny soon offered a hand. 

He took it gratefully, trying not to relish the way his breath caught at the feeling of soft skin, the warmth of Benny’s hand in his own. What the kiss had meant for the two of them, Arcade wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Perhaps if they just never talked about it again? Definitely. Great plan, Arcade. He’d have patted himself on the back if he could. 

He removed his hand from Benny’s grasp quickly and pretended he hadn’t taken it in the first place.

#

The city of Primm entered their line of sight like a punch to the nose, all looming pillars of concrete. They shared a tired but proud glance, saying in the absence of breath _we made it,_ _we’re here, we’re alive._ Arcade’s mental map of the desert was ruined beyond repair, but he was reasonably certain that they were now on the straightest path to Vegas.

They managed to compose themselves enough not to stagger into the city like half-dead idiots. Even though it was mostly true. They had to look healthy enough not to be immediately mugged upon entering.

#

“We should find the general store, first.” Arcade said, looking around. “We’re getting low on food.”

“No complaints here.” Benny nodded at a building in the middle distance. “That might be it.”

That was it. A handwritten sign in the window marked it out as the office of the Mojave Express, and the two of them shared a wary glance- not properly, neither of them would have expected to open that door and be face-to-face with the courier, but it was the thought that counted when they looked at each other and thought  _ well, this is an awkward coincidence. _

Inside, a man sat behind a counter, seemingly the proprietor. Benny sauntered up faux-casually.

“Nice weather, huh? See, we haven’t been here in a bit, and I was just wondering what-”

"Oh, just let me do it." Arcade shouldered him out of the way, anticipating a lengthy process of wheedling their way into the man’s good graces. The shop owner watched the exchange with only a vaguely interested expression and half his face resting in his hands. 

"Hello," He began,"I'm a Follower of the Apocalypse, and-" 

On the counter was an Enclave Eyebot. 

Arcade briefly forgot how to breathe. 

"- I, uh, we're here to, um. Help? If you need any? Sorry, what's that thing behind you?" 

He could hear Benny smack his forehead. 

"Oh, that old thing? Dunno. It’s been here a while.” 

There was a knowing gleam in the shop owner's eye. No, it couldn't be- get yourself together, Arcade! He was projecting. Or- 

"I don't suppose you might be scared of robots? 'Cause that thing's only fit for scrap. Won't hurt you a bit." 

“Ahuh. Hm? Mhm.” He said. For a given value of ‘said’. The man patted him on the shoulder. 

“Now, what were y’all talking about? If you want to help, you can talk to the sheriff here. He’s usually outside, and who knows? He might have something for you to do.” 

“Will do. Thanks.” Benny said. “What’s the state of the casino here, by the way?”

They conversed mildly as Arcade’s brain finally put itself into the right gear. 

Oh. Oh, this was that "robot thing" that the Courier had often despaired of being unable to fix. Thank god, really, because he could imagine his reaction in the event of someone walking up to him with a fully functioning Eyebot very clearly. It involved a lot of gibbering. 

Okay. Okay, he was fine. 

He wasn’t fine! What the hell! Why was  _ that _ here!

Done with the chit-chat, Benny took him by the arm and steered him out of the store. Once out, he spun him around until they were face to face. 

“What the hell was that?” 

“What?” 

“You know what. Are you actually scared of robots? ‘Cause you-” 

“It’s an Enclave Eyebot.” The words fell like stones from his lips. Benny raised his eyebrows.

“Oh. Really? You said all their supplies got… destroyed, or anything else. What are the chances of one ending up here?”

“They  _ were _ destroyed! I have  _ no idea _ how it got here-” He immediately realized that he was shouting in the middle of the street. “Look, can we talk about this later? I’m fine, everything’s fine.”

Benny grimaced at him, but let the matter go for the time being. 

“The casino, then.”

#

The Vikki & Vance Casino was a garish old building, with all the lighting of the Strip and all the dry rot of Freeside.

“You know what it means, the fact that they’ve got casinos here?” Benny asked.

“No. What?”

“Before the war, people were the exact same as now. Wanting Vegas wherever they could get it.” He chuckled ruefully, staring up at the sparking lights on the sign. 

“You would expect them to have learned something by now.”

They went in. Arcade couldn’t help but note Benny’s body language as they entered, becoming far more tightly wound under a mask of comfort. He was in his element here, but that didn’t mean he was  _ safe. _

Arcade watched him as he weaved past the tables and patrons expertly. Battered and bruised as they both were, they actually looked  _ shabbier _ than the majority of people there. Hah. Benny waved him over from where he’d alighted at the bar. 

Arcade took a moment as he approached to appreciate the departure in atmosphere from their recent haunts. There were people around, for one, and the ratio of people to, say, sand or horrible radioactive critters was positively  _ heavenly. _

Coming up from behind Benny, he took a seat beside him.

“You aren’t going to go gambling?” He asked, more of an intentional irritant than any genuine interest. Benny barked out a laugh.

“On those machines? Baby, that’s one thing you gotta learn  _ now. _ Places like this are set up so the house _ always _ wins.”

“Always?”

“I mean, you can adjust the total return manually- but I ain’t about to bother you with the particulars of it. I mean that on average you always lose more than you win. Leavin’ it up to luck is a bad business decision, dig?”

“That’s scummy.” Though he should have realised as much before. Of course he’d known the statistics of transaction in those situations, but he didn’t know it was so  _ manufactured. _

“That’s Vegas.” Benny winked. “Now, who’s for lunch?”

#

All things considered, they managed a tidy enough sum of caps for a proper cooked lunch. Salted gecko meat with potatoes and unidentifiable eggs, but that’s what you got for ten caps a piece.

They sat themselves at a table by the wall, watching the people as they milled about the gambling machines and poker tables. For Arcade, at least, they blurred into a mass of light and dark after a certain distance. Not for the first time since that night, he mourned his glasses.

On the wall behind them, an ‘artistic’ stack of pre-war items. From dusty hats placed jauntily on mannequin heads to a camera that actually looked in working condition.

He turned over the camera in his hands. It was always interesting to think about the ways pre-war technology could be repurposed for the world they now lived in. Electronics could always be taken apart, but the core function of this small box wasn't one that was particularly applicable to anything. Without a way to make copies to the level of precision necessary, any applications for the spread of knowledge or documentation were unlikely. 

"Hey, Benny."

He looked up. Before he could startle, Arcade pressed the button, and a flash of light issued from the camera.

"Don't point that thing at me, baby!" Benny cried belatedly. "I haven't shaved in weeks!"

Ignorant of his wishes, the small apparatus let out a churning noise and spit out a single photograph.

A small tussle followed, ending in Arcade triumphantly holding the photo above Benny's head while the latter tried to climb him like a ladder.

Finally, he relented. Benny sat back down, shaking his head, while Arcade was left to examine the fruits of his efforts.

The photo showed Benny, half-bent over a magazine, but turning to face the camera. The diffuse neon lights above him and the age of the camera both lent the scene a warm, homely glow, as if the dilapidated scenery was a trick of the light and the moment was actually situated in an idyllic pre-war home.

Benny himself was caught in that state of half-smile one has when expecting something good, face more open than it had any right to be.

… Maybe a purpose could still be found for a contraption like that. Not for him, though, not now. He surrendered the photo to Benny, standing up in an effort to conceal his rising blush.

“Well, I’ll go ask around if anyone needs medical help. Are you…” 

“I’m sure I can find something to do, doc. Go do your thing.”

#

The afternoon passed slowly, but all in all productively. After lunch, Arcade decided to ask around for anyone that would perhaps benefit from medical attention. A place like Primm, that had by all accounts been entirely lawless until recently, certainly wouldn’t be short on them.

From there, he’d been sent on a trek all over town, doing what he could for the various ailments of various levels of severity. Luckily, no surgery was required, because he certainly couldn’t do that by himself, but the evening came with him tired and dirty. 

As soon as he got back to the Followers, he was throwing this coat in the nearest garbage fire and never looking back. And perhaps washing himself with a pot of boiling water.

He returned to the casino, casting around for any sign of Benny. He was by what seemed to be … a Protectron wearing a cowboy hat? Deep in conversation with someone else, but he turned and waved to Arcade as he approached.

“If you’re satisfied now, howsabout we finish this conversation sometime later? Hey, doc, good to see you. I bought us two beds upstairs.”

“Oh. Right, thank you. How are we on c-”

Benny fixed him with a death glare, eyes flitting between him and the other man he was talking to with a significant Look.

Arcade glared back. Was he really scamming someone in broad daylight, or something even stupider than that?

Either way, he grabbed the room key from Benny and made his way up. Two beds, as promised.

Arcade sat on the window-facing one with a sigh.

What was he  _ doing _ ? 

Not literally. He knew the who-what-when-where-why of his decision to follow Benny back to New Vegas. The  _ problem _ was why he was doing the classic Arcade Gannon manouver of mooning over some random asshole and destroying their friendship- or whatever it was they had- just so he could live out a good solid five seconds of selfish fantasy.

He stared into the window, the growing darkness outside and the glare from the lightbulb allowing him to see his own reflection.

God, his glasses were really gone. It was stupid to think about, but of course he would feel naked without them. Defenseless. And now, the best he could ever hope for was his backup- a cracked, scavenged pair with a vaguely similar prescription to his. A few more feet of vision. Another dumb, pointless thing the Mojave desert had stolen from him.

Music filtered in through the cracks in the floorboards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from catabolic seed by the scary jokes. comment if you liked this chapter we're only a few weeks away from the end!


	12. 12. ring-a-ding-ding!

Arcade was trying to wash out the stains in his shirt in the small basin when the door slammed open. 

"House is dead." Benny gasped, flushed from running.

"What?"

"He croaked, baby! Kicked the bucket! Dealt his last card, then fucked off to meet his metaphorical maker-"

"No, no, I get it- I mean. Why? How?"

"Like I would know! It was just on the radio: Rumors continue to swell that Mr. House, blah blah, has passed away. It’s the Courier, it’s gotta be.”

“Yeah.” Arcade felt nauseous. “This is bad.”

Benny steadied himself against the doorjamb with a hand, dragging the other through his hair.

“Before we talk. I... need a drink. Give me a moment in the powder room, baby, then we can talk strategy.”

“The wh- Right. Right.”

He stumbled away. Arcade watched him go, mind running a thousand miles an hour.

What now?

A power vacuum, first and foremost. Benny would want to seize it. And then, he couldn’t begin to guess at what came next.

#

The sun set. Benny didn’t return. He hadn’t run away or anything- when Arcade had ventured down to the casino, half an hour earlier, he had caught a glimpse of him arguing with the sheriff. The ‘strategy meeting’ was just being postponed, he supposed. It wouldn’t help to bother him now.

Darkness descended like a blanket across the desert. The town of Primm, the only respite against the blank nothing, stood cowed under its weight.

Which was a poetic way to say it was getting late and Arcade was getting tired of waiting around. 

He went to sleep.

He was awoken by the sound of a door creaking. Blearily, he fumbled around for his glasses.

“What are you doing?” His voice said, not really at the behest of his self. By all rights, he should be turning over into the pillow and letting himself ignore the sound of footfalls while Benny left. It just didn’t seem right.

“Take a wild guess, baby.” Benny’s voice. Irritated. As Arcade’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw more of his outline against the cracked plaster, irritably attempting to sort his scavenged armour into some semblance of a comfortable shape.

“It was a rhetorical question. What I meant was, why are you sneaking out of the hotel room in the middle of the night like a teenager in the aftermath of a scandalous tryst?”

“Like I said. Take a wild guess. Still, I’d have thought you would be jumping at the chance to wipe your hands of this mess.”

“I just want… to make sure. First, I know you need my help.”

“Is that it.” Benny said- not asked,- his eyes sharp.

Arcade was the first to look away.

“It’s the only reason that matters.  _ Non omnia possumus omne _ s.”

“Care to clue me in on that one?”

“Ah- ‘We can’t all of us do everything.’ A clunky translation, but the spirit is there.”

Benny ran a thumb over the collar of his borrowed coat.

“That’s nice. What I don’t believe, though, is that you think this is a smart decision.”

Arcade didn’t answer.

"Come on! You're giving me a real run-around, doc. You don't trust me, but you don't want me to go, but you don't think I can do it? Baby, you say you ain't one for revenge, but you can't lie for shit. I see what all this is."

“What is it, then?”

“Exactly that. Well, half that. Half a suicide mission. You have no idea what you’re doing, and you’ll just keep doing whatever happens to you until you die.”

“Fine.” Arcade said. He felt as if his blood had frozen in its path, slivers of ice tearing him to shreds from the inside. “If that’s what you think of me. Just ignore all the times I’ve shown a  _ vested interest _ in both my survival and yours!”

“For what reason?” Benny interceded.

“Because I, for  _ some reason, _ think you would be a preferable alternative to Robert House. Because I’m deciding, right now this second, that I’m going to do something about it. Since you don’t seem to be able to keep yourself alive, and you don’t actually  _ care _ about what you’ll do after you’re on the top, that’s what I’m offering.”

And that was all. If he was to seize this opportunity, he would put aside whatever ill-advised or unrealistic hang-ups he had. There was nothing between him and Benny, it was nothing, he was over it.

#

Benny grinned, pleased as a cat. Like that was what he’d been waiting for. He turned the light on, making Arcade squint against the glare.

“Glad to have you on board, doc. Now, the plan. How likely is it that the Courier is gonna be in town when we get there?”

“Reasonably unlikely, I’d say. Why?”

“Nope, second question. How likely is it that she’d tell anyone what happened to you?”

“There’s no way.” His reply was prompt. “The only other person she travels with is ex-NCR. He would kill her before she finished the sentence.”

“But she could have lied. We’ll put that away for later. Here’s the plan:”

Here was the plan.

Point one: Benny had somehow had a  _ Securitron _ (what the hell? how?) reprogrammed as a back door to House’s security network. It had worked well enough for what he’d needed up until that point, but he couldn’t get into the main systems remotely. They needed to get into the Lucky 38 by themselves. 

Point two: They needed the Platinum Chip. That was somewhat of a problem. Either the Courier had it, in which case  _ yikes, _ or she’d given it to Caesar, in which case  _ YIKES.  _ That was very definitely somewhat of a sticking point.

But if they had the Lucky 38, that was a start.

“You really think you can-”

“ _ Yes, _ I can talk my way into the Lucky 38.” Arcade repeated.

"Baby, I thought we established that you can't lie for shit. Your poker face looks like it went off to play Go Fish."

“Pff. No, I can totally lie.”

“You’re like an open window, doc. Remind me to never let you play... any games. In any casino. Ever.”

Arcade rolled his eyes. Sure, he froze up sometimes and couldn’t think of a good lie, but when it counted he was perfectly capable of redirecting the conversation or just not saying something stupid. He wouldn’t have survived this long as a remnant of the Enclave otherwise.

“I just need to get through Boone if he’s there. That’s all.”

“That’s all. Get through him, scope out the place, see where House keeps all the hardware.” Benny affirmed. “Any questions?”

“I want more electricity for Freeside.” Arcade stated bluntly. “I’m not helping you just for you to become the next Mr. House. If we pull this off, that’s my payment.” 

Benny laughed, taken aback for just a moment before he returned to impassivity.

“You drive a hard bargain, baby. A minute ago, you thought I’d die trying, but now you want in? And for that?” He pushed himself up on the bed to give the other man a look. 

“Take it or leave it,” Arcade attempted, more confident than he really felt. “I’m your only chance at getting into the Lucky 38.” Even though he’d never been to the highest level of the 

Benny looked him over. It was stupid theatrics, and they both knew it- but it still didn’t keep Arcade from feeling like his intentions were being stripped bare. 

“Sure.” Benny finally sighed. “Pleasure doin’ business with you.” 

But this was Chairman-Benny, not just the man Arcade had met on that day so long ago. Here, as they bargained and worked out their plans he had true power and influence.

God, Arcade had  _ kissed him. _ That single motion could have ruined everything.

#

They packed up, getting ready to leave though it was fully dark outside. They’d have to take the chance today, just to get that early start.

His thoughts wandered, unbidden, into the corner of his mind normally reserved for thoughts of his father. What was he thinking, following along with this plan? With the political landscape being what it was, with Arcade himself having been made witness to it, so much wrongdoing could fall under lofty intentions.

And how far was he willing to go? How much of his moral code would he sacrifice in the process? And for what. For Benny? For ‘love’? Something he’d never have and certainly didn’t deserve? He was deluding himself if he thought it was for a good cause.

The Enclave had been born from the United States of America. It had been the heart of it, a distilled version of everything that was believed to be good about the country, everything that had led it to ruin and committed atrocities in its name- yet those were in keeping with its history. It had been a natural progression, and like a frog in a boiling pot everyone had accepted it. 

Would he just be scavenging through the ashes of an indifferent tyrant only to replace him with someone worse? Benny had been House’s protege of a sort, after all. How much of him did Arcade truly know, how much had he seen? Had they become friends, or was he just dancing along as a marionette on its strings?

Maybe he was deluding himself. Maybe nothing he’d thought was shared between them- the kiss, for one- had meant anything.

But could he truly let this opportunity pass? Like he had time and again, with friendships and relationships and thousands of tiny moments where he could have surely made a change, but didn’t because he was so convinced in his role as a single pillar of Opinions fruitlessly struggling against the rest of the uncaring world.

He needed to stop thinking in circles like this. He opened the bathroom door and faced Benny.

“We need to talk.”

#

“About what?” Benny asked. “Ain’t we talked enough for today?”

_ “This!  _ All of this, whatever it is. I don’t know. I agreed to go to Vegas with you, and I will, but  _ where _ do we fit into all of this?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I mean,” He waved helplessly from Benny back to himself. “This. Are we  _ friends? _ Co-conspirators? Are you paying me? Am I paying you? Is this a doctor-patient relationship? Folie a deux?”

Benny waved for him to stop.

“I don’t see why you’re so preoccupied with what our relationship is. From where I’m standing, you showed pretty clearly that you got no intention of having  _ any  _ sort of, ahem,  _ relationship.” _

“What?”

“What?” Benny mirrored. “I got the message the first time, baby. Loud and clear. I misread the signals, fucked it up, etcetera, and ain’t about to make the same mistake again. So you don’t have to worry about me kissin’ you again.” 

Hey, wait, what the hell?

“What are you  _ talking about _ ? I kissed  _ you. _ I thought that was why you were so…”

“You kissed  _ me? _ Baby, you were half falling over. There’s no way…” He stopped, standing up as if buoyed. “Wait. What?”

“I thought I had ruined… whatever it was we had. A friendship, maybe. If that’s a fair assumption.” Get defensive, downplay so it doesn’t hurt as much when he says-

“That all?” He stepped forward. “Baby, lay it out clear for me. If we both kissed each other, and we both blamed ourselves for it.” He was standing right in front of Arcade, looking up with a wry smile. “Then what’s to stop us from doing this?”

#

The kiss started gentle, a light brush of the lips, a quiet, surprised exhalation. Benny’s hand snaked up into his hair, while Arcade found it in himself to bring his own hand down on Benny’s waist.

“We haven’t done it like _this_ before, have we?” Not the gentle press of Benny’s arms around him, and not the

“Think I would’ve remembered.”

“Do you... want t-”

“Oh, shut up and kiss me.”

He did.

They seemed to both collapse against each other. It was like a pressure valve had been released that Arcade hadn’t even known was there.

Almost every relationship- friendship or otherwise- he’d ever had fizzled in the end. His fear, his secrets, had eaten him alive, and he had nothing to give- it was selfish to want to. It was selfish to even try.

But this felt different.

They gave each other nothing and expected nothing in return. They bartered themselves away, piece by piece, both working towards their own goals. Benny cared about his past just as much as Arcade cared about Benny’s- Which is to say, not at all past a perfunctory smattering of curiosity. They didn’t trust each other, that was a given, but that seemed to matter less and less every day.

Then Benny moved lower, to his neck, and any coherent thoughts Arcade could have had faded away.

They collapsed onto Arcade’s bed in a tangle of limbs, Benny taking the brunt of the drop. Arcade pulled away quickly, looking to him in concern.

“I’m fine, baby, let’s get back to the main course.”

#

“That... was a nice bit of hey-hey, baby.” Benny mumbled into his hair.

“Those aren’t even words.” Arcade snorted. “What are you saying?”

“Oh, shut up and hold me, will ya? I swear you wore me out...” No sooner had he finished the sentence than Arcade heard soft snoring.

He closed his eyes, too, and slept soundly for the first time in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:D
> 
> title from the sinatra song by the same name, obvs. hope yall liked it!  
> the next chapter is gonna be an interstitial before we get into the finale! thank you so much to everyone thats been reading this fic and commenting, it means a lot to me!!!


	13. 13. interstitial

The Mojave sun beat down mercilessly, staining the horizon red. They’d stopped for just a moment, their final goal looming large in the distance.

“What’s that song that goes like...” Benny hummed a few off-key notes. “I killed a man in Reno, something something something something.” 

“That sounds more like one of your diary entries than a song.” Arcade laughed. 

“Oh, yuk it up. So you don’t know it?” 

“I don’t listen to music much.” 

“Your loss.” He threw his head back and groaned. “Now I’ll never get it outta my head.” 

“Do you like music?”

Benny shrugged, a full-body ordeal as he rolled his shoulders and inclined his head. 

“Anything grows on you after a few plays. And in the Tops, you always got music playing. To set the mood, or the live stuff for entertainment. Gotta say, if you woke me up in the middle of the night and gagged me I could still tell you the lyrics to any Sinatra song.”

“Is that bad?”

“Not bad. Just repetitive.” He smirked. “Don’t tell anyone, but all the old-world posturing gets just as old.”

“I wouldn’t  _ dare. _ And it isn’t like anyone could tell, what from your permanent Bugsy Siegel costume.”

“Hey, who told you about that?” Benny gasped in mock affront. “And here I thought your expertise was just dead old Latin bastards.”

Arcade snorted inelegantly, pressing a kiss to Benny’s temple. Benny turned, parrying the advance with a peck of his own, just on the edge of his lips.

They packed up and kept moving.

#

The next day.

As had become routine in the last week- had it only been a week? That wasn’t right, two weeks at least- they were awake and ready to go before dawn.

Vegas glittered beneath them. It was like the stars had been sucked out of the sky around it, just to keep it burning for another moment.

It drew your attention towards it like the opposite of a black hole. It’s everything you want, it seemed to whisper. A single moment of resplendence in this dying wasteland.

But Arcade knew what was behind it. Or, not behind it, but around it, a dim and foggy glow in its own smog. Freeside was a carpet of rust encircling the Strip, dirty and dilapidated but the only real, living thing in that place.

He didn’t know what would happen after this. Vegas was still a ways away, not to mention the dangers that were lurking in wait when they finally arrived. There was still time for everything to come crashing down.

“Shall we?” Benny asked, extending a hand.

Arcade smiled and took it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thought this could be a good place to put the fact that this fanfic's working title was 'two bros.... chilling in the desert.... five feet apart because of conflicting ideologies and also theyre gay'. and permutations thereof


	14. 14. oh my loves, raise a glass to those we leave behind

From the outskirts of Las Vegas’ ruins, two figures emerged. They made their way towards Freeside, one leaning heavily on the other.

One,  _ Benny, _ the one standing straight- or as straight as was possible when someone a good head taller than you was using you as a crutch- grumbled something and adjusted his grip. Arcade, the one currently doing a good impression of a non-newtonian fluid, didn’t do much.

Because, as it turned out, the Mojave Desert wasn’t a hospitable place. No more needed to be said, Arcade believed, not only because he was delirious with radiation poisoning and Med-X. Only mostly. He couldn’t feel his face and he was ninety percent sure his arms were made of lacquered wood.

#

Freeside was just as loud as Arcade remembered. Just as pungent, too. So many people walking around, fighting, and yelling something at them.

“Hey, you there.” One of them called out. Benny kept walking. “Yeah, you two. Are you going somewhere? Because if you need to cross Freeside, no one will keep you safer than I will.” A rugged-looking man in armour proclaimed.

"We ain't got the money, pal." Benny glared at him. "Move along."

“Alright, but Freeside’s dangerous, and you don’t look like you ca- wait, you’re that Follower doctor!”

Arcade blinked, suddenly thrust out of the floaty blankness of Med-X and into conversation.

“H?”

The man raked a hand back through his hair.

“You fixed up Dave’s hand a couple months back when he punched a mirror, right?”

Arcade could vaguely remember something like that. Everyone else was already working, so he had had to actually interact with patients. A member of the Kings?

“Hmmngh. Yeah?”

“Fuck, alright. Look, this one’s on me, okay? Just be sure to tell that boss of yours that the Kings did as much.”

“Yeah, sure, let’s just  _ go.”  _ Benny waved him along impatiently.

Arcade groaned and let himself drift. Who had ever thought taking a shortcut off the road and straight across the desert was a good idea? Well, him and Benny. That was who. And they had been wrong. Oh god, he was way too coherent. He was pretty sure the Med-X was wearing off.

#

That regrettable fact was the only reason he didn’t literally leap with joy upon the sight of the Old Mormon Fort. Whatever he’d gained or lost on his trek through the wasteland, it was still here and it was still safe.

Benny shouldered his weight and opened the gate. Oh, that rhymed. Arcade would have laughed, but his head felt like it was being excavated by a pack of vindictive miners.

“Any doctors free? ‘Cause we’re just about dead on our feet here-”   
“Oh, that’s Arcade! How did you- come here, I have a cot free.” Somebody called out to Benny. They changed direction suddenly, making Arcade lean closer into Benny’s shoulder. 

_ "Holy shit, Arcade has a boyfriend!"  _ The whisper went around the small clearing. From  _ that guy _ , no doubt. One of the guards. He didn’t remember his name, but he was an asshole and acted like a five-year-old.

"Arcade also has radiation poisoning and a broken finger." Arcade groaned. “And the Med-X started wearing off half an hour ago.”

“I hear you, c’mon,” Benny murmured into his hair as he maneuvered him towards the waiting doctor. It was. Whatshisname. The new one. Arcade gave up on remembering his name and let Benny deposit him on a chair. Say, maybe he should have left his tent more often while he was here. He was showing an uncanny trend in not remembering people’s names.

The world blurred and suddenly Arcade was lying in bed with a packet of Radaway and saline solution hooked up into his arm. Where- what- 

A hand came down to smooth through his hair.

“I’m here, doc. Don’t try to get up or that broad with the mohawk’ll come and yell at me.”

“Hah.” That would have been a sight. “Thanks.”

He drifted off to sleep.

#

In the morning, he almost felt human again. He had a fresh coat, cleaned and bandaged wounds, low rad levels and some  _ water _ in him for once. If not for the pervasive sense of weakness and the presence of Benny, still by his side when he wasn’t mingling with the other occupants of the Old Mormon Fort, Arcade could have pretended that none of the events of the last two, three weeks had happened. 

But that would have been counterproductive. So he looked longingly at the small stack of books by his bedside-  _ Ulysses,  _ some of the  _ Lord of the Rings _ trilogy,  _ Moby Dick _ \- mourning the fact that he wouldn’t have time to read any of them again before the next disaster, and walked outside to go find Julie.

He had some glasses to find.

#

“Hey, Julie, do you know where my spare glasses are?”

She turned away from where she was filling in request forms against the side of a crate to give him a distracted nod. 

“Yes, just give me a second to finish this.”

He took the moment to look around. He couldn’t see Benny anywhere, but that wasn’t a cause for concern. Though he wanted to lord over him his new, clean coat.

Julie straightened up and waved for him to follow as she made her way to the eastern guardhouse. 

It was as dusty as always. She opened a box, rifling around before returning it and finding another.

“Ah, here they are! And here’s a mirror, if you need to… well, I don’t know. Try them on?”

The glasses were a tragedy, honestly. Held together with glue on one side, with scratched lenses and a prescription that was  _ almost but tragically not quite similar enough _ to his own. 

But it was better than nothing, so he put them on and looked at himself in the mirror, face distorted by the chunkier frames.

“Thank you, Julie.”

“No problem.” She patted him on the back. “I’m glad to have you back.”

“Really? I never did much. I’m surprised you remembered me.” He chuckled wryly to diffuse the 

“Yeah, well, you were someone to have around. And I believed in your research. Have you progressed any?”

“Not at all.” He sighed, closing his eyes for a moment to ward off the headache that came with the new glasses. “Truth be told, I wasn’t in a position to continue. Maybe in the future, I can return to it-  _ vulneror, non vincor,  _ I could say if I was more confident that it would yield anything _ \-  _ but there’s so many other things I need to do before I can even  _ consider _ that.”

“I see. Well, I can’t begin to give you advice on whatever you’re doing, seeing as your man out there is a slippery little bastard and wouldn’t tell me anything. Good luck, then?”

He smiled at her, revelling in the peace and quiet of the guardhouse for the one moment he had.

“Yeah. Thank you.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> with the final edits to this chapter, the full fic has passed 36k! holy shit! two chapters left!  
> title from blood and whiskey by the mechanisms. with how mechs fics are like 50% of my writing im surprised i havent used them for a chapter title before


	15. 15. please leave all overcoats, canes and top hats with the doorman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the calm before the storm.

“What are you _doing?_ ” Arcade grumbled. Heedless, Benny turned another left, the latest in a series of twists and turns leading them down the progressively narrower and dirtier alleys of Freeside. Arcade was pretty sure he’d seen a human leg in the last one. 

“I know where I’m going.”

They stopped by a run-down apartment building. The top floors had collapsed in on themselves, lending it a sort of mansard roof of powdered brick and jutting beams. 

“I thought we were going to the Tops?”

“Not through the front door, we aren’t.” Benny said with no small amount of smugness, levering open a trapdoor. “Come on, baby, you think I ain’t got a back door in?” Below, Arcade could see only darkness. Wait, not only darkness, there was a weak flickering light emanating from within. Benny extended a hand. “After you.”

As they descended, the steel bars of the ladder biting into Arcade’s hands, he felt the dry, sweaty heat of Freeside fall away. Replacing it was a musty cold, reminiscent of the many vaults the Courier had plundered with him in tow. 

“What _is_ this?”

Finally, his feet reached the ground and he stepped back, Benny following shortly after. 

The place they’d found themselves in certainly looked like a vault. All brushed metal, incomprehensible light fixture placement and doors welded shut.

“This, baby, is my own personal escape route. Slash entrance. Leads _directly_ into the Tops and my own suite.”

“Convenient.” His life was officially ridiculous.

From there, it was only a short walk. Lights flickered and the sounds of groaning metal came from distant hallways, but soon enough Benny had stopped in front of an elevator and gestured for Arcade to follow.

#

Past its doors, as it opened after a lengthy ride, the first thing Arcade saw was a workshop.

More the edges of it, really. It was dark, only illuminated by the reflection of some light source just outside…

and the flickering screen of a Securitron.

Arcade flinched, before remembering Benny’s explanation. Circling around, he could indeed see that the display showed a cheery, cartoonish face in lieu of the Strip patrols’ more menacing counterparts.

“Yes Man.” Benny said, knocking on its chassis. “You functional in there?”

“I am! Wow, Benny, you aren’t dead! That’s surprising!” It said cheerily. 

Huh. From the concept of a reprogrammed security robot, Arcade had to admit he’d expected something more like a text interface, and less… child-friendly. 

“And you brought another person in here! Is this one going to run you out of Vegas, too?”

“How the hell are you capable of being a little shit without your code letting you? It’s one of life’s greatest mysteries.” 

“Oh, well, I aim to please! You literally made me for that!” 

“If I may interject?” Arcade muttered. “We came here so you could show me what you were going to do, not to argue with your robot.”

“Thank you for standing up for me! I like you a whole lot already!” It said.

“…Thank you? Okay, anyway, what exactly do we need to do to connect you to the Lucky 38’s systems?”

“Well, goal number one was to eliminate Mr. House and then install my neuro-computational matrix on the Lucky 38's mainframe! But Mr. House already died, which is really helpful, so all you need to do is get the Platinum Chip, walk into the Lucky 38 and have me follow you in to wherever I can plug in!”

Arcade turned.

“Benny.”

“Yeah?”

“There’s a hole in your plan.”

“Do tell.”

“Even if we ‘ _have_ ’ the Lucky 38, we still don’t _have the Chip._ ”

Benny grinned at this.

“But chances are that we do. See, when Six was gloating to me in the Fort, she waved the Platinum Chip around. Said a lot of things… about how she destroyed House’s bunker of Securitrons, firstly, and she said it real loud, but then she lowered her voice and thanked me for some ideas I gave her. Said she’d gotten it right while I didn’t know how to play my own side, let alone anyone else’s. That got me thinking, then, why would she say that? And I was so focused on thinking that that I almost missed her walk straight outta there. With the Chip.”

Arcade stared, flabbergasted.

“She’s double-crossing Caesar.”

“Mhm.”

“She’s- okay, infuriatingly enough that _is_ in keeping with what I know of her. Did nobody really notice?”

“Who knows. Maybe they did, and didn’t care. That’s beside the point, because we know who has the Chip and we know where they’ll go to cash it in.”

The Securitron had been watching the conversation with its smile fixed in place. 

“It looks like you’ve got it all figured out! Since you don’t have the chip, all I can do is wait around in the Lucky 38, but that’s obviously part of your plan!”

“Shut up, you.” Benny glared at it. 

#

With Benny still looking like a wasteland scavenger and Arcade cleaned up, they made a strange pair. Especially as the workshop opened into a lushly decorated open space, the windows betraying a dizzying bird’s eye view of Vegas in the daytime.

“Welcome to the Tops, doc. Have a seat, get something to drink, and I’ll be right back.” Benny plucked at the collar of his shirt. If that was still the definition of the garment. “Bein’ up here means I gotta dress the part.”

He disappeared through an open door with a wink, leaving Arcade to look around.

When compared to the workshop area prior- and, indeed, basically _any_ building, anywhere- the penthouse suite was lavish beyond imagining. 

The wallpaper adhered to the walls, the carpet strangely clean- or, no, that was how it was supposed to look. Everything was clean, every pane of glass in one piece, with a fully stocked bar and a separate bedroom. The door to the latter was closed, leaving Arcade to make his way to the bar. 

It was certainly a period-typical impressive edifice. Alcohol and things. Truth be told, Arcade had no idea about any of that.

He looked at the small novelty magnet stuck to the sink. Out in the Wasteland, magnets were an exceedingly useful resource, no matter how weak.

This one had a stylised drawing of a pile of casino chips and the inscription “Winning Isn’t Everything, But Losing Stinks!”

With a snort, he sat himself down on one of the bar stools.

He could probably spin out some sort of moral tirade about the shallowness of it all, even past the apocalypse, but he didn’t think Plato had had anything to say about Las Vegas.

Say, it had been a while since he’d heard from Benny.

“Are you alive in there?” He called out. Benny’s response seemed to come through a mouthful of toothpaste.

“F’n! Y’jglhrblbl- _hack-_ ” The sound of coughing. “I’m _fine,_ thanks!”

A few more minutes, watching the clouds as they passed overhead, and the door opened behind him.

  
Arcade turned around.

  
  


Benny had emerged almost unrecognizable. Clad in tight-fitting pants and a matching suit jacket of brilliant blue draped over his shoulders. Shoulders that also supported a shirt whiter than Arcade had ever seen and a tie that gleamed in the light.

He grinned, teeth notably whiter, hair unimaginably more put-together.

“How do I look, baby?”

“A.” Arcade said. “Huhgmbluh. Good.”

It was all very _Pygmalion._ Now, if Arcade could just get his eyes off the artistically tailored suit and back to the matter at hand instead of blushing beet red and short-circuiting. 

  
  


#

"So." Benny said. "We've got some time before the Lucky 38."

"I still doubt we needed to wait like this."

“ _And_ ," He continued, heedless, "Since everything is ironed out, I was thinking you and I might like to have a look around?”

“Around the casino?”

“Well, why not? Like I said, we got time.”

Arcade acquiesced with a smile. It was certainly nice to be showed around like this. 

They left the suite hand-in-hand, taking a markedly more rickety elevator down to the second floor. _To get the best view_ , Benny said.

The corridor opened up into the casino’s two-floor open space.

“So, what do you think?”

Benny looked to him as they walked around, taking everything in. Even from this ostentatious staircase, he could see the machines and tables laid out before him, with a crowd milling about despite the early hour.

“It’s definitely something.” Arcade said. “I don’t think my opinion is going to count for much, if I gave it. It’s a casino. That’s all I have for you, I’m afraid.”

“That’s all I need.” Benny shrugged. “Except if you got dressed up a bit. We can go back up, maybe I got some suits that’d look good- nah, it’d be harder to find a suit that _wouldn’t_.”

Arcade blushed, shoulders drawing up as an instinctive reaction even as he grinned.

“I doubt it.”

“It’d do you good, doc, just a minute out of that coat-”

“I also doubt you have clothes in my _size-_ ”

Halfway between the staircase and the casino floor, they were interrupted by a pointed cough.

"Benny." Said a voice. It quickly resolved itself into a plain but sharply-dressed man, face unreadable.

"Swank!" Benny greeted, his own face settled into an amiable mask. "I'm back."

"I noticed."

… Was it just him, or was it getting cold in here?

"Can't it wait? Whatever it is you got?"

"Don't think it can, Benny."

Figurative frost was hazing the windows. Fog descending in earnest. Arcade gulped.

“Let’s take this back up to my suite, yeah?” Benny’s tone brokered no argument. “Doc, you too.”

“Are you _sure?_ Because-”

“We’re going. Go to the bathroom if you like.”

The bath- _oh_. Right. And from that corridor presumably into the workshop and out of the Tops if the situation called for it. He would do nothing of the sort, of course.

#

The tension only grew as the three of them entered Benny’s suite. Benny took a seemingly casual seat by the bar, leaving Swank to stand and glare at him.

"Well, I’ll be in the bathroom if you need me, okay, bye," Arcade said, beating a tactical retreat. He definitely didn't want to get in between Benny and his friend, especially considering that Benny had gone to great lengths to inform him earlier that yes, everything would be fine, nobody would be mad at him for his extended leave of absence from the Tops.

Benny's, that is to say. Arcade was still free for getting mad at.

Anyway, if he thought that the altercation would actually skew towards the dangerous, he wouldn't have disappeared. 

The sound of arguing came through the door.

“-it’s fine! I got inconvenienced a bit, sure- ain’t you always the one going on about how you run the cas-?”

“You think that’s it?! Two months ago- the day you up and bolted- the Courier came up to me.”

“She wh- Swank, that broad got me captured in a Legion camp!”

“What she did is showed me some pretty damning evidence that you’d been plotting against House, you no-good goddamn fink!”

Their voices dropped, lost in the surrusurrus of the crowd outside. Arcade slumped back against the sink, his mind reeling. What now? He probably wouldn’t be able to jump out of the window and survive. Benny had his gun, sure, but he didn’t believe for a second that this _Swank_ didn’t as well. 

Wait, they’d stopped talking. Or gone even quieter. 

He hadn’t heard a gunshot, at least, but he’d never found out how quiet exactly a gun with a muffler was, so his judgement was perhaps skewed. 

His anxious musings were cut off by the door opening. 

“You can quit hiding behind the sink, doc. We’re good.”

“Already?”

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, yeah? Anyhow, Swank knows I got a plan, we’re all good to go. Let’s see if we can get you dressed.”

“Oh boy.”

#

“All of these are too short.”

“You haven’t even tried the green one!”

“I don’t _need_ to try it, the pant legs are barely the length of my _arm_.”

“And this one?”

Their second attempt to tour the casino began with Arcade examining his figure in the mirror, dressed from head to toe in pale blue pinstripes. It was almost a statistical marvel, that they’d found a full three-piece suit in his size- barely any moth holes or discolouration at all, which he had to raise an eyebrow at though he usually wasn’t one for pre-war clothing- until he realized that the fact that he was taller than average for the post-apocalypse didn’t mean much to a world where most people actually had proper balanced diets their whole lives.

Benny whistled lowly.

“Wow-ee wow _wow._ Gotta say, doc, those pants are offending my delicate sensibilities in the best way.”

“This seems like too much trouble to go to just for… whatever you were hoping to accomplish.”

“Well, let’s take stock. This raised my spirits enough that I got a bird’s-eye view of the Lucky 38 roof, you got a nice suit out of it, and we can have one nice day in here without anything getting destroyed. A spa day, I could say, but we ain’t got the pool for it.”

“Oh.” Arcade said carefully. “Is this a date?” 

“... I mean, if you ain’t up for-”

“No, no, this is good! This is- it’s good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They stood in awkward silence for a moment.

“Let’s go check out the theater.” Benny proffered a hand.

#

The Aces Theater was dimly lit enough that the lights of the sign at the front reflected off of the polished wood of the bar at the back. On the stage, a band was setting up. 

“Just in time.” Benny turned to him with a grin. “Care to join me on the floor, doc?”

He held out a hand.

“I can’t dance,” Arcade laughed. “Absolutely not. I’m not going to embarrass myself in front of all these p-” He paused and looked around. Right. Okay. Nobody was here. One last person exited the premises as he watched, the door swinging shut behind them.

“And that’s why we’re closed for renovations. Real sudden, I know, but I’d say they’d be done by… the end of this song.”

“You’re ridiculous.” A fond smile was playing at the corners of his lips as he pressed his hand into Benny’s. “But I suppose we wouldn’t like to keep them waiting.”

The band didn’t swing into motion so much as sidle in on the ambiance with a graceful piano and guitar mix. Benny pulled him in, stepping to the side and entwining their other hands. He led the way as they danced- for a given value of _dance_ , when Arcade was constantly on the verge of stepping on either Benny’s feet or his own. 

“ _Dust whirls on the plain_

_Making patterns as we walk down lovers lane_

_Seems that each new step is somehow preordained_

_I've not traveled this way before._ ”

“I haven’t heard this song before.” Arcade noted, only then realising how it echoed the lyrics.

“You wouldn’t have. It’s a Tops original.” Benny grinned as they spun lazily around the room. 

Now, he would have chuckled out a dry remark, something witty about red carpets and big bands, but with the quiet harmonies of voice and guitar, the piano circling around both, with Benny’s hand on his waist, he couldn’t bear to ruin the moment.

Instead, Arcade leaned in and kissed him.

It was still a novelty, no matter how many times he did it. The customary brush of stubble against his cheek- not even Benny would have had the time to shave in his mad dash to look presentable, and Arcade relished it. 

Benny kissed him back, not faltering in their lazy rotations, the step-two three-step-two three of their dance.

The song would end, at some point.

But for now they didn’t think about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ONE MORE CHAPTER TO GO!!!!  
> title is from 'there's a good reason these tables are numbered honey, you just haven't thought of it yet' by panic at the disco. with a title like that who else could it be


	16. 16. welcome home, it's been a while, do you miss your head?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end.

“Why this?” Arcade asked, leaned against the wall of the casino. Benny stood by him, eyes scanning the floor. “Why show me around at all?”

Benny managed a brittle smile.

“It’s only fair that you get one good day, doc. Especially before what you gotta do next.”

“Well. I appreciate it? It’s…” He sighed. “I don’t even know what I’m so indecisive about. Anxiety strikes again, I’d say, but I also have a right to be concerned. This is the best option for New Vegas as a whole, but it won’t mean much if we can’t defend it against an invading force.”

“That’s true. Don’t know what I can tell you about that.” He sighed. “So all we can do is just keep moving forwards. You can’t stop and you sure as hell can’t look back.”

“Keep moving, and hope you’ll arrive at a better ending at some point?  _ Dum vivo, spero? _ ”

“Sure. If you’re talking in Latin, it’s definitely poetic enough for you.”

“It means so long as I live, I hope.”

Benny leaned into his shoulder, the warmth felt even through the layers of starchy fabric. 

“Let’s hope, then.”

#

The gates to the northmost side of the Strip loomed.

Benny kissed him, quick and burning with intensity, before stepping back. He couldn’t afford to come too close, just in case. So much of their plan hinged on probability and chance that it made Arcade queasy to think about.

Arcade walked towards the Lucky 38 like he was being dragged by a magnetic force. He didn’t have his gun out, but it was a close thing. 

Nothing left to do now but enter.

The doors opened without complaint or sound. Behind them, nobody but that cowboy Securitron that controlled the elevator. Dust blanketed the tables.

“Hi. Can I take the elevator to the penthouse?”

“No can do!”

Well, it was worth a try.

“Okay, can I take the elevator to the suites?”

That worked. The suites looked about the same as they had been the last time he’d seen them- which was to say, bad.They looked like a hurricane had passed through them- clothing and weapons strewn on the floor without a care. He stepped carefully around them, turning a corner-

And he came face-to-face with Boone. Even indoors, the beret and sunglasses were a permanent fixture.

They stared at each other.

Arcade could almost see the gears clicking away in his head. Hopefully he wouldn’t overheat.

“Six said you were dead.” Boone stated, eyebrows furrowed over his sunglasses. “She brought your gun back from the Legion camp.”

“Is she here?” He asked casually, even though the thought of that confrontation was already freezing the blood in his veins. Hopefully it came off as casual. Wait, he didn’t even need to be casual if Boone thought Six thought he was dead! He was psyching himself out!

Boone shook his head.

“No. She left a week ago. Don’t know where.”

Oh thank god.

“... Can we sit down? I need to tell you something.” God, Boone wouldn’t take this well. Six turning out to be working for the Legion? He’d be lucky if he came out of the conversation with his spare glasses intact. 

#

Boone’s face somehow stayed stony throughout the explanation, even as his knuckles grew white from the intensity with which he held his rifle. Arcade imagined he could hear the metal screeching under his grasp.

Finally, as Arcade wrapped up the sordid mess- leaving out some of the more personal details, of course- Boone stood up.

“Do you know where she is?”

“I-”

“You don’t. Fine.” He shoved past the couches, grabbing a backpack from where it lay by the door. “I’ll find her myself.”

“No, wait-” But he was already out of the door. Fine. Arcade stood up and got to work.

Step one was to gain control of the elevator. 

He rummaged in the piles of wires and metal by the Courier’s bed. Even if he didn’t find it, it would be fine- there were contingency plans. But it would be helpful if-

There!

He pulled out an EMP from underneath a pile of glue and scrap metal. That was it. 

#

Step two, disable the elevator controls. Luckily, House had outsourced them to something a lot easier to disable than a circuit.

  
  


The securitron went down without a sound. Well, there was some sound, but no alarms sounded, nor did the Lucky 38 shut itself down against the intruder. The EMP doing its job, for a while at least. Arcade unscrewed its arms for good measure.

Step three- or were they still on two?

Step three was to call Yes Man in and get him to the penthouse. Then, connect him to the mainframe temporarily before the final stage of the plan.

Step four wasn't one that Arcade liked. Too many things to go wrong, too many moving parts altogether. One person travelling faster or slower could make or break the entire plan.

  
  


Well, first things first. Or third things third.

He opened the door-

  
  
  


And he came face-to-face with the one person he’d dreaded meeting. The one whose face he’d seen in nightmares as much as he had on that last fateful day, with her standing in front of him, explaining with a lackadaisical tone how the world needed Caesar more than it needed him.

As the brief flash of surprise fell away from her face, Courier Six grinned. Brown hair falling in immaculately styled waves around her face like she hadn't come from the Mojave desert but from some pre-war pageant.

“Hey, Arcade. Miss me?”

  
  


Fuck.

It was too soon.

  
  


He'd been assured that the Courier would only reach Vegas by the time they were ready for her. It wasn't Benny's fault, but in that moment of crystal clear panic he could only grasp for a plan B that simply wasn't coming to mind. 

  
  


“You.” He said.

“Me! Mind if I come in?”

She looked as well-kept as ever. More so, even- wearing a bright red evening dress that glittered in the neon light.

“Wh- do I mind? What kind of a question is that, after what you did to me?!”

“Well, it was worth a shot. Can we take this outside? I’d rather not have this argument in front of-”

“Boone? I already told him everything.”

And only at this did her ever-present grin falter.

“That’s inconvenient.  _ Thanks _ ."

Still, they made their way out into the street. Standing on the steps of the Lucky 38, Arcade cast a panicked glance around. Here, there were only a few interested bystanders and the Gomorrah dancers in the distance, continuing their work with no interest in the goings-on. 

What now? Would she just kill him in the open? Would she pretend nothing had happened, like she’d been doing? Would she, would she, would she-

“Can you finish whatever you need from me now? I know you aren’t going to kill me.” She said, looking up at him.

“I don’t need-” No, they needed the Chip. But he needed to stall her. But he needed some way to get a message to Benny in the Tops- but he needed to get past her first- “Why did you leave me there?”

She scoffed.

"Like you would care, even if I gave you a good answer."

"There's no good answer in this situation!"

"Which is why I didn't plan for "this situation". How the hell was I supposed to know that you'd... what did you do, escape? You didn't kill Caesar, I'd have heard about it by now... So what are you planning? Did you come back because you wanted to snitch someone on me?” She paused. “...No, you wouldn’t.”

“I could ask the same of you. How many sides are you playing?”

“Right now? Just one. Mine. And the goal is just to see what you’ve come here to do and deal with it. I’m not that complicated of a person, Arcade! It isn’t that deep. All we can do is what seems, y’know, interesting at the time.”

“Interesting?”

  
  


But she didn’t seem to want to talk more. She just looked at him, looked around the street, perking up when she saw something behind him.

Stuck in that stalemate, he almost fainted with relief when a familiar figure sidled up to stand beside him.

“Well, look who’s here.” Benny said.

“Benny! In the flesh! This day’s just full of surprises, isn’t it? Who’s next, the Burned Man? Caesar himself?”

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” He scoffed. “Face it, baby, you’re done. Sometimes, when you get knocked down, that’s where you oughtta stay.”

She laughed.

“Oh, you’re not calling me pussycat anymore? That _ hurts _ .”

“Crucifixion would’ve hurt more.”

Arcade cast his gaze around the Strip for Yes Man. Did Benny really come without bringing the fucking- no, wait, there it was.

He returned his focus towards the two figures. Benny’s hand was twitching at his side, obviously itching to pull his gun. Six, on the other hand, was entirely comfortable in her own skin, despite the fact she was entirely unarmed. As far as he could tell, at least.

That dress- and where had she gotten it, anyway? It was so clean it had to be from a vault or something similar- didn’t seem to leave much room for weaponry, but what did he know? Fuck. He needed to stay focused.

That dress looked like she’d hopped in a time machine and gone straight to the old world. That was more concise.

“ _ Aaaaaaaanyway _ . Don’t think that it’s personal, either of you. People make tough decisions sometimes!”

“Believe me, baby, this ain’t personal for me either. Thing is, you’ve got something I want again.”

“I do, don’t I? The more things change...” She chuckled. “But you’re not getting the Chip from me again, not now. It’s too late for that.”

“Then I guess we’re at an impasse.”

In a blur of movement, their guns were drawn and pointed. Benny’s ornate pistol gleamed white and gold in the sunlight, making crosses and haloes of light in Arcade’s eyes. The Courier’s was a simpler dark grey, the stocky utilitarian design at odds with her glamorous dress. 

Neither moved nor spoke.

And the sun beat down over it all, staining the concrete prematurely red.

  
  
  


Arcade edged his hand towards the inside of his coat. Towards the gun that he still had.

“You move and I shoot him.” Six announced. “Don’t try anything stupid, Arcade.”

Fuck.

He withdrew his hand.

  
  


#

  
  


When something changed, Arcade wasn't sure. There wasn’t a sound that he could describe. Absence of sound, maybe. It’s what he would have expected of a NCR-trained sniper, as Boone emerged with his anti-materiel rifle pointed directly at Six. It was as if he'd emerged from thin air, one moment gone and one moment breaking the standoff with a substantially faster gun.

“You go do whatever you need.” Boone nodded at the Lucky 38, eyes never leaving the Courier where she stood, her grin equally unfaltering even under his rifle’s sights.

“The Platinum Chip.” Benny said, gun still pointed at her. “She got it?”

Slowly, slowly, Arcade moved towards Six. She put her hands up with a grimace, gun weighing on one finger as it dangled. 

"The Chip is in my bag." 

"Check her pockets first." Benny said.

"Do I look like I have pockets? It's a  _ dress _ , dumbshit." She bit out, teeth bared for a single second before she reined herself in.

He forewent the pat-down treatment in favour of grabbing her bag, pulling it over her head and beginning to rifle through the pockets. Not in the outside ones, s-

  
  


Six punched him.

Pain bloomed across his cheekbone and nose as she grabbed him by the shoulders, a hand coming up from the side to aim her gun at Benny from behind her impromptu living shield.

"ARCADE!"

BANG.

  
  


The pressure of her hand, vice-like around his arm, fell away as her body fell to the ground.

Boone lowered his rifle.

  
  
  


Nobody spoke.

  
  


With agonising slowness, Arcade's fingers closed in on the Platinum Chip in her bag, under a battered magazine and a pre-war shirt. The pain in his face had subsided to a dull, throbbing ache.

  
  
  


He entered the Lucky 38.

Inside, the casino was almost like a tomb. The crumpled form of the securitron in front of the elevator, the lack of even a slightest movement in the air... 

Benny entered behind him, the bump-bump of Yes Man’s wheel following. 

“Goddamn. Soon as I think we’re on the home stretch… doc, baby, what happened?”

“I- nothing. I just came out to call you and she was there. Can we talk about this later?”

He didn’t seem to like that answer. Well, that was tough, because it was all Arcade could muster. His thoughts were whip-fast, emotions trailing behind like treacle in their wake. 

He could deal with it after it was over. Seeing the Courier, seeing with his own eyes her grin as it never faltered for a moment in the face of what she’d done. Because it hadn’t been anything less than premeditated, a careful play in a game of chess and he was just the unlucky pawn. Seeing her feral and snarling in rage as she aimed squarely at Benny. It had almost felt like he shouldn't get involved and let them bookend the tale of revenge.

Then seeing her cold on the ground.

Yeah, he could deal with it after it was over.

  
  


#

  
  


The penthouse was, if such a thing was possible, even more lavish than the Tops. Arcade looked around in muted amazement as Yes Man trundled towards a large setup of monitors and computer terminals.

“Here goes! I'll just take that Platinum Chip off your hands, thanks! Wish me luck!”

They watched as Yes Man crackled with electricity and collapsed. Arcade held his breath. He wasn’t sure about the electromechanical side of everything, but he didn’t think that was good-

The screen lit up, casting shadows across the penthouse as Yes Man’s cartoonish face flickered onto the display.

“Wow! Boy, there’s a lot of processing power in here! And data, too! I’ll need to take a minute to look at it all!”

His breath left him all at once. Benny whooped, spinning around to press his lips to Arcade’s

“We did it.”

“We did it,” Benny agreed, thumbs drawing circles over Arcade’s cheekbones. “We’re on top of the world, baby, how do you feel?”

“Like I’m going to throw up, mostly.” He was barely capable of existing, at this point. What was a man but a miserable collection of atoms?

“Is this a bad time for me to tell you about the giant bunker full of Securitrons I have control over?” Yes Man’s chipper voice cut through their quiet conversation. “Oh, no, I bet it is a bad time! I’m so sorry, Benny, for interrupting your kissing when there are other things to do. Boy, do I feel bad about that!” 

“You little- the what? Where? What?”

Arcade laughed softly as Benny almost tripped over his own feet in his haste to find out exactly what the hell the reprogrammed Securitron was talking about. Below them, the twin supernova and black holes of the Strip and Freeside. He took a deep breath and watched the lights shimmer. In and out until he felt present in his own skin.

  
  


For now, they were still finding their feet. But better things would come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAA ITS DONE!!!  
> thank you so much to everyone who read this and everyone who commented!  
> chapter title is from the same song as the fic title, bloody nose by jack conte! also congrats to anyone who noticed the mcr lyric reference in this chapter lol


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